Okay, let me get this out of the way. I’m not a huge fan “The Matrix” franchise. I liked the first film but don’t hold it up as a classic the way many do. The second was a movie of three absolutely breathtaking action sequences and not much else. The third installment was a mess and I don’t remember a thing about it. Now eighteen years later they’ve decided to make a fourth film. It begs the question, do they actually have a meaningful story to tell that makes it worth reviving the franchise or is this a quick and easy cash grab?
Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Anne Moss, and Jada Pinkett Smith all step back into their leather-clad action roles. Joining them are new faces Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Jonathan Groff, Daniel Bernhardt, Neil Patrick Harris, Priyanka Chopra Jonas and Christina Ricci. After several days of Warner Brothers hype, the first trailer dropped today and it shows a lot of snappy images and stylish combat. But the Wachowskis have always be able to do that. It’s their storytelling that has sunk so many of their movies. How will this one turn out? We’ll find out soon.
“The Matrix Resurrections” opens December 22nd in theaters and on HBO Max. Check out the trailer below and let me know if you’ll be seeing it or taking a pass.
California native Mike Mills returns with his first directed film since 2016’s “20th Century Women”. His latest is “C’mon C’mon”, an A24 production that just had its world premiere at the Telluride Film Festival. The film sees Joaquin Phoenix plowing some fascinating new ground and taking a break from such dark and intense movies as “Joker” and “You Were Never Really There”. The first trailer looks great and hit me right in the feels.
Shot in exquisite black-and-white, our brief 1 minute 26 second peer into Mills’ new film sees Phoenix’s character reading a book to his nephew. As he reads we’re treated to a collage of images speaking to the young boy’s life and the relationship he forms with his uncle. There’s an incredibly tender thread that runs through the entire thing. If the movie as a whole has the same heartfelt connection I can see it resonating with me in a big way. Can’t wait to find out.
“C’mon C’mon” is still listed as coming soon, but it should release later this year. Check out the trailer below and let me know if you’ll be seeing it or taking a pass.
Throughout the grand history of cinema there have been countless science-fiction stories about humanity seeking a new home in space. Some have been sprawling odysseys of discovery while others have been about settling and surviving in exotic and sometimes dangerous new worlds. The new Swiss-German sci-fi thriller “The Colony” does something a little different. It tackles the idea of going back to Earth after two generations away.
Tim Fehlbaum directs “The Colony” which does what most good sci-fi does – it focuses on humanity as much (if not more) than aliens, deep space or futuristic tech. There are several subtle themes woven into the film’s story. But at its core the movie explores the notion of losing our humanity in our efforts to save it. How far is too far? At what point do we cross the line and lose the very thing we’re so desperately trying to preserve?
To set up the story (co-written by Fehlbaum and Mariko Minoguchi), a deteriorating climate, global pandemics and endless wars rendered the Earth uninhabitable. As a result, the ruling elites used their means to leave the planet, eventually settling on a space colony they called Kepler 209. Two generations pass and the colonists discover that something on their new home has made them infertile. Shades of “Children of Men”?
Image Courtesy of Saban Films
Reasonably fearing that their inability to reproduce will lead to their extinction, scientists put together The Ulysses Project, an exploratory mission to find out whether a return to Earth is possible. The first crew to attempt a landing on the blue dot was assumed lost and never heard from. Not a good sign.
“The Colony” begins with Ulysses 2 bursting through Earth’s atmosphere. It’s a jolt of an opening that’s one of the film’s few “action” moments (if you can even call it that). The pod carrying the three-person crew malfunctions during its entry and crash-lands. One crew member is dead on arrival, the mission commander (Sope Dirisu) is seriously wounded and astronaut Louise Blake (Nora Arnezeder) survives the crash unscathed.
One of the first things you’ll notice happens to be one of the movie’s biggest strengths, and that’s the harsh and barren world Fehlbaum imagines. Our once thriving planet is shown as nothing more than a dank and desolate wasteland of tidal waters and mud flats. It’s visualized through mostly practical effects that emphasize the unwelcoming bleakness and dystopian dread. To capture these early outdoor scenes, Fehlbaum took his cast and crew to the German Tidelands rather than use green screen. The shoots proved challenging, but the benefits on screen are obvious.
Arnezeder (who earlier this year shined in Zack Snyder’s “Army of the Dead”) makes for a compelling protagonist. As Blake, she’s essentially the lens through which we see this world unfold. After landing she immediately begins taking samples and readings. But just minutes into the movie she’s attacked and taken prison by a band of scavengers – human survivors who were left behind when the wealthy and powerful made their exodus. And there’s also this – they have children.
From there Fehlbaum tosses aside outer space and plants us in his apocalyptic hellscape where the survivors are already repeating mistakes from humanity’s past. Most notably, something akin to a class structure has taken form. The scavengers live in rickety huts able to float whenever the tide roles in. They’re frequently invaded by a more advanced and overtly oppressive colony who dwell in the belly of a massive grounded freighter fortified by walls of metal. The two factions create an interesting dynamic that has some startling parallels to our modern society.
Image Courtesy of Saban Films
Driven by Kepler 209’s cult-like mantra “for the many” (which Blake chants repeatedly, more to convince herself than out of some deep conviction), Blake is determined to complete her mission and get word back to her home colony. But soon she finds herself drawn into the conflict between the emerging haves and have nots. Soon she’s forced to question herself and her own motivations. It’s an intriguing angle especially with children involved. The scavengers have them; the other community wants them.
While Fehlbaum’s exploration gets points for its thoughtful human-centered interests, there’s a frustrating vagueness to both the story and the characters. With the exception of Blake, none of the people we meet are given much depth and some are little more than devices. Meanwhile the deeper we get into the story the more conventional it gets. There’s also an undercooked mystery surrounding Blake’s father (the leader of the first Ulysses mission) that could’ve used more attention.
Thankfully “The Colony” never completely derails in large part because of the stellar production design. The stark dismal environments brings thoughts of “Waterworld” and “Mad Max” but without the big studio shine. Instead Fehlbaum’s world is ugly, gritty and palpable. And while his story may lose a little of its focus, the underlying themes form a thought-provoking message that’s pretty timely for our current day. “The Colony” is now showing in select theaters and on VOD.
Today Netflix dropped the trailer for their upcoming tight-knight thriller “The Guilty”. The movie is actually a remake of a terrific 2018 Danish film of the same name from director and co-writer Gustav Möller. This American version is helmed by Anthony Fuqua (“Training Day”, “The Equalizer”) and stars Jake Gyllenhaal. It features an interesting supporting cast that includes Ethan Hawke, Paul Dano, Riley Keough and Peter Sarsgaard.
Seeing those names attached is intriguing considering the movie takes place entirely in a 911 dispatch center and focuses on a single emergency operator (Gyllenhaal). The story unfolds after the operator takes the call from a girl believed to be abducted. Over the film’s tense 90 minutes the operator tries to piece together the mystery and save the girl with only fragments of information. I’m not sure if we needed an American remake, but I enjoyed Möller’s film enough to give this one a try. And with a cast like that…
“The Guilty” premieres in select theaters September 24th and on Netflix October 1st. Check out the trailer below and let me know if you’ll be seeing it or taking a pass.
“Together” shouldn’t be tossed out as just another pandemic movie. It’s true that it takes place during the U.K.’s coronavirus lockdown, but at its heart, “Together” is about a marriage on the rocks. It’s about a warring couple reassessing their relationship while confined inside of their London townhouse. It’s combative, toxic and often unpleasant. But the real challenge for audiences won’t be the film’s nastiness. It will be the aggressive style of storytelling that forces the viewer to play a part in every scene.
The story literally begins on March 24th, 2020, “the first day of national lockdown“, and ends approximately one year later. We’re introduced to a well-off London couple in their 40’s who we only know as He and She (James McAvoy and Sharon Horgan – both brilliant). It only takes a few seconds to see that their relationship is strained and has been since well before the virus hit. In fact, their opening salvo of insults makes their disgust with each other pretty clear.
But not everything is so caustic. There’s just as much needling and petty bickering as the two characters find all sorts of ways to unload years of resentment. Ultimately He can’t stand the sight of her. She hates being in the same room with him. They’ve stuck together this long for their 10-year-old son Arthur (Samuel Logan).
Image Courtesy of Bleecker Street
While the quarrelsome couple have their heated one-on-ones, the vast majority of their conversations are with us, the viewer. Kelly’s script makes us quite literally the third adult in the room, and over half of the movie sees McAvoy and Horgan breaking the fourth wall and speaking directly to the camera. At different times throughout the film’s 90 minutes we’re asked to be the couple’s silent mediator, therapist and confidant. It adds an unexpected intimacy, but it also puts us right in the middle of some pretty fiery exchanges.
All of that may sound unbearable, but over time the hateful sparring takes a different tone. Instead of constantly being at each other’s throats, we begin to see cracks in the couple’s hardened exteriors as the lockdown affects them both in different ways. Their mutual contempt begins softening, only to be replaced by feelings of fear, isolation and despondency. It doesn’t necessarily make the movie easier to watch, but it brings new dimensions to the characters and adds some much-needed layers of humanity.
While Kelly’s script begins by using the lockdown to introduce his two characters, the film’s second half sees him turning the tables and using his characters to comment more openly on the pandemic. Nothing captures the film’s fury quite like She’s experience with her ailing mother who is put in a nursing home just as the pandemic starts, but later catches the virus after the government decides to move COVID-positive patients into elderly care facilities. That’s the kind of maddening hard-to-swallow truth that will make “Together” resonate with some while alienating others.
Ever have one of those occasions where you do something that makes you immediately question your own judgement? I’m talking about something so ill-advised; so glaringly unwise. Something that you should know better than to do, yet you do it anyway. I recently had one of those occasions. What did I do you may ask? I watched “Karen”.
In my paper-thin defense, I didn’t really go into “Karen” expecting something great. I honestly thought it might be one of those “so bad it’s good” kind of experiences. Nope. It’s a full-blown “so bad it’s just bad” movie that left me speechless more than once. Not because of some bold, audacious filmmaking or a shocking unexpected plot twist. No, I was left dumbstruck by the sheer amount of awfulness that somehow made its way from the script through the editing process and onto the screen.
Image Courtesy of QuiverDistribution
Written and directed by Coke Daniels, “Karen” never conceals its intentions for one minute. You can’t miss its bludgeoning message which is nailed into every scene. You also can’t miss the complete lack of inspired storytelling, the astonishingly bad dialogue, or characters so poorly conceived that it’s impossible to connect with them in any meaningful way.
The story is as simple as a young African-American couple moving into an uppity all-white Atlanta suburb where they’re terrorized by their whack-job racist neighbor. That’s the movie in a nutshell. The neighbor’s name is Karen, which is not only the name of the movie but also a play on the goofy pejorative term for an entitled and privileged white woman. But if you missed that connection don’t worry. There’s a character who spells it out for us at least three times throughout the movie. “She’s a Karen whose name is Karen,” he says again and again and again. Yes, we get it.
The couple is Malik (Cory Hardrict) who runs an area community center and his wife Imani (Jasmine Burke) who is a stay-at-home blogger. They’re a weirdly out-of-tune pair whose naïveté is only outdone by their lack of awareness. They meet their new next door neighbor Karen (Taryn Manning) in the opening scene and it’s obvious that she’s a little nuts. It only takes a few more scenes to see that she’s completely deranged. Yet Malik and Imani are continually shocked and caught off-guard by Karen’s creepy and offensive antics.
The character of Karen doesn’t fare much better. Daniels leaves nothing to the imagination, fully revealing her to be a hyper-bigoted lunatic from the start. Within fifteen minutes there is nothing left for us to learn about her – no mystery, no surprises. Karen is a cartoonishly unhinged and irredeemable racist from start to finish. Daniels tries to amp up her nastiness, but it’s kinda hard when she has already done so many horrible things. I mean is the confederate flag on her bathroom soap dispenser supposed to reveal anything that we didn’t learn earlier when she had two men kicked out of a restaurant simply because they were black?
Image Courtesy of QuiverDistribution
The movie only gets worse the longer it goes, even throwing in a numbingly awful police brutality angle that’s as poorly handled as anything I’ve seen on screen in a long time. It’s one of several instances where the movie takes a sensitive hot topic and butchers it rather than giving its audience something to chew on. It doesn’t help that no one in the movie feels like, acts like or talks like a real person. So any theme the film might want to explore is lost in messiness and absurdity.
I’ll be honest, “Karen” is so bad that I started trying to redefine it as a satire or even a parody of some kind. But no, this thing really takes itself seriously. The performances are terrible, in large part because the cast is working with one of the worse scripts of the year. The dialogue is quite literally cringe-worthy, and it will have you sitting in stunned amazement (not a good thing). And the story pours everything it has into its lone gimmick, one that never deviates from its bland one-note track. So that leaves us with a ham-fisted social justice thriller minus the thrills and with nothing engaging to say about either society or justice. “Karen” is now available on VOD.
Keith & the Movies 