Game Night review

GAME NIGHT:

THIS NIGHT DELIVERS BIG LAUGHS!

By Nico Beland

Movie Review: *** out of 4

WARNER BROS. PICTURES AND NEW LINE CINEMA

(From left to right) Sharon Horgan, Rachel McAdams, Lamorne Morris, Billy Magnussen, Jason Bateman, and Kylie Bunbury in for one wild night in Game Night

            Comedy straight man, Jason Bateman (Arrested Development, Juno, Horrible Bosses) collaborates once again with directors and screenwriters, John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein (Horrible Bosses, Vacation, Spider-Man: Homecoming) in the dark comedy-mystery film, Game Night. You know those comedies that look painfully stupid and awful by their trailers, but they end up being a fun time? Yeah, that’s Game Night to me.

            When I saw the trailer for this movie I thought it looked really bad and confused in its humor. But word of mouth started to spread at how funny it was and on top of that it had a good mystery with unexpected twists (The complete opposite of Raja Gosnell’s Scooby-Doo movies).

            So, I grabbed a seat for Game Night and…yeah, it’s a lot of fun and ingeniously plays around with the murder-mystery genre with a new spin added to it. I was laughing hysterically while still being invested in the story and characters, all portrayed brilliantly by the film’s cast.

            The film follows competitive couple, Max (Bateman) and Annie (Rachel McAdams-Mean Girls, Sherlock Holmes, Doctor Strange) hosting a weekly couples game night with their friends, Ryan (Billy Magnussen-As the World Turns, Into the Woods, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt), Sarah (Sharon Horgan-Man Up, Adventure Time, BoJack Horseman), Kevin (Lamorne Morris-New Girl, BrainRush, Barbershop: The Next Cut), and Michelle (Kylie Bunbury-The Sitter, Twisted, Under the Dome), everyone’s having a good time with nothing out of the ordinary. Until Max’s brother, Brooks (Kyle Chandler-Argo, Zero Dark Thirty, Manchester by the Sea) pays them a visit and kicks their game night up a notch with a murder-mystery party with fake thugs and federal agents.

            As the murder-mystery game night begins, Brooks suddenly gets kidnapped and everyone thinks it’s all part of the game…right? The six uber-competitive gamers set out to solve the case and win but as they dig deeper into trouble, they discover that Brooks and the game aren’t quite what they seem to be.

            The film also stars Jesse Plemons (Friday Night Lights, Breaking Bad, Black Mass) as Gary Kingsbury, Michael C. Hall (Six Feet Under, Dexter, Justice League: Gods and Monsters) as The Bulgarian, Jeffrey Wright (James Bond franchise, The Hunger Games franchise, Westworld) as the FBI Agent, Danny Huston (The Aviator, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Wonder Woman) as Donald Anderton, Chelsea Peretti (The Smoking Gun Presents: World’s Dumbest, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping) as Glenda, Michael Cyril Creighton (Orange is the New Black, Spotlight, The Post) as Bill, and the film’s directors, Daley and Goldstein as Carter and Dan.

            Overall, Game Night blurs the line between hilarious and suspenseful in all the right ways, thanks to its talented cast, witty script, and outrageous premise that plays with old mystery movie clichés. The humor is dark in tone and many of which revolve around blood, death, and wounding, but I felt they never go too far with the jokes to the point where it becomes sick and disturbing.

            The film also has several references to movies such as Pulp Fiction, Fight Club, and The Green Mile that got a big laugh out of me. And if you know your movies then you’ll be laughing along with me once those references show up.

            What impressed me most about this movie were the performances by its cast, which is odd because I’m usually aware of Jason Bateman’s shtick when it comes to comedies. But here I was really invested in his character and thought he had really good chemistry with Rachel McAdams, I almost forgot I was watching actors, what they say and do in the film are natural and they act like a real couple.

            Although if I had to nitpick something about the movie, at times the story can be very predictable, particularly during the climax. It isn’t a bad thing but as the final act was going I was able to predict what the resolution was going to be, who would survive, and who was going to die, it felt like a hybrid of 21 Jump Street and The Hangover at the end, but I digress.

            Game Night is a laugh riot with a solid story, strong characters, and keeps you on your toes all at the same time. If you’re “Game” then grab your gamer pals, go to your local theater, and have some good laughs, because that’s the name of the game.

Annihilation review

ANNIHILATION:

A DAZZLING, HAUNTING, AND COMPLEX SCI-FI FILM THAT KEEPS YOU GUESSING ALL THE WAY THROUGH!

By Nico Beland

Movie Review: *** out of 4

PARAMOUNT PICTURES

Natalie Portman in Alex Garland’s Annihilation

            Writer and director, Alex Garland (28 Days Later, Dredd, Ex-Machina) follows up the critically-acclaimed, Ex-Machina with the sci-fi horror film, Annihilation, based on the novel of the same name by Jeff VanderMeer. I have not read the book so I’m not sure how faithful this movie is to its source material, but as an enthusiast of Garland’s previous work on Ex-Machina, it’s a solid sci-fi thriller.

            Is it on par with Ex-Machina as a new sci-fi classic? No, but the movie is visually stunning, has a complex but fascinating story, and plenty of mystery and thrills. The film does drag, and the pacing is very slow, but it never bored me because I was invested in the story enough and wanted to know what was going to happen in the end, it’s kind of like watching a good Shyamalan movie in terms of its pacing.

            The film follows a woman named Lena (Natalie Portman-Black Swan, Thor, Jackie) who is a biologist sent on an expedition to Area X (Why is it always X?), a mysterious region within a national park codenamed the Shimmer. Three years prior an object struck a lighthouse within the park and the Shimmer started to manifest shortly afterwards, causing all sorts of mysterious things to happen.

            Lena and her expedition team, Dr. Ventress (Jennifer Jason Leigh-Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle, Anomalisa, The Hateful Eight), physicist, Josie Radek (Tessa Thompson-Selma, Creed, Thor: Ragnarok), anthropologist, Cass Shepherd (Tuva Novotny-Dear Alice, Eat Pray Love, The King’s Choice), and paramedic, Anya Thorensen (Gina Rodriguez-Jane the Virgin, Deepwater Horizon, Ferdinand) venture into the Shimmer to uncover the truth behind it and hopefully save the life of her husband, Kane (Oscar Isaac-Inside Llewyn Davis, Ex-Machina, Star Wars franchise), who is dying from an unknown illness. However, what lurks in the Shimmer may be too terrifying for the team to comprehend and have a much bigger purpose than they expected.

            Overall, Annihilation is an ambitious sci-fi film that’s well-acted, visually stunning, and has a story that leaves you pondering after the film ends. This can be either a selling point or a turn-off point, it’s not a straight-up horror movie but more of a character study and analysis on themes of life, purpose, and the unknown.

            If you’ve seen the trailers thinking it’s a scary movie with jump scares, gore, and creepy imagery all throughout the film, it’s not at all like that. It’s like seeing The Witch or the two Blade Runner movies expecting an over-the-top horror or action movie but really, they’re very talkative movies that take their time telling the story and have more of a mystery tone.

            There are scary moments and even gory imagery but they’re not the focus of the movie, the focus is where it should be, on the characters and moving the story along. Unless you’re doing something new or completely insane with your scares and/or giving a fresh take on old tropes, it’s easy for me to lose interest in scary movies.

            This movie doesn’t lose my interest, I was invested all the way through even when moments felt slow and dragged on. Mostly because of Natalie Portman’s performance, she’s giving it her all and always makes an impression, she’s come a long way since the Star Wars prequels.

            Though I will admit, the supporting cast aren’t developed that well, Oscar Isaac’s barely in the movie and there’s not much time devoted to the rest of the cast besides Portman. I get it, Natalie Portman’s your big star here and you want to get people in the theater, but you can take a break from her once in a while and establish the side characters a little better.

            I also felt the ending or “twist” was on the weak side, you had all this build-up and suspense but there wasn’t much of a payoff. Remember The Sixth Sense and how it had a slow pace but the twist at the end completely blew everyone away? I was expecting something along the lines of that movie and came out of the movie not mind-blown but scratching my head and saying “Wait, what?”.

            Had this movie gone for a Sixth Sense style ending or even something like Arrival, this could have been as amazing as Ex-Machina. But as is, it’s a well-made movie that could have used a better payoff, hopefully Paramount’s next release, A Quiet Place fixes that.

Early Man review

EARLY MAN:

NOT AARDMAN’S STRONGEST WORK, BUT A GLEEFULLY ABSURD ANIMATED FILM WITH PLENTY OF LAUGHS!

By Nico Beland

Movie Review: *** out of 4

SUMMIT ENTERTAINMENT

Dug and his pet wild boar, Hognob in Early Man

            From Aardman Animations, the studio behind Wallace & Gromit, Chicken Run, and Shaun the Sheep return with their latest stop-motion animated film, Early Man. Directed by Wallace & Gromit creator, Nick Park (Creature Comforts, Chicken Run, Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit) and produced by long-time collaborator, Peter Lord (Chicken Run, Flushed Away, The Pirates! Band of Misfits), this film marks Nick Park’s first film as a solo director and first directing credit in over ten years since Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit in 2005.

            On paper Early Man sounds like the dumbest, most ridiculous thing ever conceived, a football game (No, not the American kind) being played by cavemen and Bronze Age soldiers. Fortunately, the film is self-aware of how absurd its concept is and has fun with it through witty jokes, a colorful cast of characters, and outrageous visual gags, and the majority of them hit bulls-eye.

            The film follows a tribe of primitive hunters being displaced from their home in a valley by emissaries from a distant empire that has mastered the art of bronze making led by the sinister, Lord Nooth (voiced by Tom Hiddleston-Marvel Cinematic Universe, War Horse, Kong: Skull Island). A tribesman named Dug (voiced by Eddie Redmayne-The Theory of Everything, The Danish Girl, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them) rebels against the Bronze Age City and challenges them to a game of soccer to win their valley back.

            Why soccer you may ask? Well, because their ancestors have played the game for centuries through an origin that only an animated film can make up and had a long history of games. Until the cavemen unknowingly gave up on soccer and transitioned to rabbit hunting, and Dug, with the help of a soccer enthusiast from the Bronze City named Goona (voiced by Maisie Williams-Game of Thrones, Mary Shelley, The New Mutants) must whip his tribe into shape and win the game for their land.

            The film also features the voices of Timothy Spall (Harry Potter franchise, The King’s Speech, Mr. Turner) as Chief Bobnar, Richard Ayoade (The IT Crowd, Submarine, The Boxtrolls) as Treebor, Selina Griffiths (Jonathan Creek, Midsomer Murders, Not Going Out) as Magma, Johnny Vegas (QI, Benidorm, The Brothers Grimsby) as Asbo, Mark Williams (Harry Potter franchise, Stardust, Albert Nobbs) as Barry, Gina Yashere (The Jay Leno Show, Married Single Other, The Daily Show) as Gravelle, Simon Greenall (People Like Us, Alas Smith and Jones, Trapped!) as Eemak, Miriam Margolyes (Balto, Babe, Harry Potter franchise) as Queen Oofeefa, Rob Brydon (Shaun of the Dead, MirrorMask, The Trip trilogy) as Message Bird, Kayvan Novak (Syriana, Facejacker, Paddington) as Dino (No, not the dinosaur from The Flintstones), and Park as Hognob.

            Overall, Early Man is a funny movie whether you’re a kid or an adult, and especially if you’re an animation enthusiast (like myself). I don’t think it’s on the same level of quality as Chicken Run or the Wallace & Gromit shorts, but this is a movie that encompasses everything I love about Aardman’s films.

            There are jokes flying at you constantly, many of which you’ll miss the first time around while you’re too busy laughing at another joke. It’s a movie that requires multiple viewings to get all the jokes, and I have no problem with that because I’ve already decided that I’m getting the Blu-Ray once it comes out.

            The animation and set pieces are beautiful like most of Aardman’s films and the sets are obviously miniatures but once you put a camera in those little sets they’ve built, they feel larger than life and full of imagination. It’s also fascinating that the movie was filmed on green-screens for CG such as fire and weather effects, but they’re kept to a minimum and most of what you’re watching is really there.

            From a visual perspective, nothing feels lazy or cheap and everything is well-detailed and appealing to the eyes. Right down to the simple-looking clay puppets of the characters, if you look closely on the characters in an Aardman film, you’ll notice fingerprints by the animators to maintain a homemade-looking appearance, a simple detail like that on top of all the time spent to animate them is truly something to be admired.

            I also really like how this doesn’t feel like an animated film that was made for marketing purposes which is what a lot of Aardman projects were like when DreamWorks and Sony were distributing their films. Early Man isn’t distributed by a major film studio and it reminds audiences that a good animated movie comes from its story and characters, not because of toy selling.

            Early Man brings the laughs and heart to make for a satisfying family outing, a delightfully absurd but consistently funny animated film that’s ironically a better Flintstones movie than the actual Flintstones movie. Don’t expect a Chicken Run or Wallace & Gromit, but a well-made animated movie nonetheless.