Focus Features has finally given us our first look at Paul Schrader’s follow-up to his brilliant “First Reformed”. Once again sporting a tortured male as his central character, Schrader’s “The Card Counter” sees Oscar Isaac in the meaty lead role. He’s joined by an intriguing supporting cast that includes Tiffany Haddish, Tye Sheridan, and Willem Dafoe.
Isaac plays a former soldier turned gambler haunted by ghosts from his past. He becomes a mentor of sorts to a revenge-hungry young man (Sheridan) looking to pay back a certain Colonel (Dafoe) with links to both of their pasts. Tiffany Haddish also has prominent presence in the trailer although her character is surrounded by mystery. I love the cast with Haddish being the one exception. Can she tone down her loud high-energy routine for a role like this? I’m anxious to see.
“The Card Counter” premieres at the 2021 Venice Film Festival and opens wide September 10th. Check out the trailer below and let me know if you’ll be seeing it or taking a pass.
2019‘s “Escape Room” was a movie built on a catchy premise but that eventually ran out of gas and ended with one of the most absurd and hard-to-swallow cliffhangers I’ve seen. But with a $9 million budget next to a $156 million box office take, it’s safe to say that green-lighting a sequel was a pretty easy call for Sony Pictures. This time around the budget gets bumped up to $15 million which the movie could reasonably make back during its opening week. Then again, once people get wind of how bad of a follow-up this is, all bets are off.
“Escape Room: Tournament of Champions” was one of the many movies delayed during the COVID-19 pandemic. It finally comes out at a near perfect time; after anticipated blockbusters like “A Quiet Place Part II”, “Fast & Furious 9”, and “Black Widow” have eased many anxious moviegoers back into theaters. Obviously the “Escape Room” movies don’t have the pull of those big-budget franchise films, but you still expect decent numbers. But then I saw the movie.
Image Courtesy of Sony Pictures
Its laughably bad title aside, “Tournament of Champions” didn’t set especially high expectations. The trailers advertised more of the same which would probably be enough to entice fans of the first movie. But where the 2019 film at least kept your interest most of the way, it’s sequel had me restless by the 15-minute mark and ready to check out at 30. That’s because this thing is inferior to the first film in every way imaginable which is stunning considering it didn’t have a particularly high bar to reach.
Something you’ll quickly notice is the shockingly shallow story that pretends to be interested in the cliffhanger ending of its predecessor but then completely tosses it aside within the first few minutes. We get a brief reintroduction to Zoe (played by the super soft-spoken Taylor Russell) who’s in therapy following the events of the first movie and is still determined to take down Minos, the shadowy corporation revealed to be behind the escape rooms. In case you need a refresher, Minos creates these elaborate (and potentially lethal) puzzle rooms and fills them with unsuspecting victims all for the viewing pleasure of their high-paying clients.
Considering that was the big reveal from the 2019 flick, you would expect the sequel to pick up that plot line and expand on it. Instead the filmmakers are content with just rehashing the previous film’s blueprint – toss people into a new escape room, watch them frantically try to solve a puzzle that opens the exit, someone probably dies, then it’s off to the next room, rinse-and-repeat. That’s this movie in its entirety. Zoe and her manic tag-along friend and fellow survivor Ben (Logan Miller) drive from Chicago to Manhattan to gather proof of Minos’ existence. But within minutes they find themselves lured back into the game, this time with new and far more deadly puzzles.
There are a few new characters who join Zoe and Ben, all previous escape room survivors. There’s a travel blogger, an alcoholic priest, a meathead, and a woman who can’t feel physical pain. Don’t worry about their names because they’re only characters in the literal sense. Nothing about any of them is remotely interesting. There’s no charisma, no discernible personalities, no depth. They just panic, scream at each other, and somehow still manage to solve these convoluted puzzles just in the nick of time. Sure some will die, but their deaths have no impact whatsoever. In fact, some are so freaking annoying I found myself rooting for their demise (sorry Ben).
Image Courtesy of Sony Pictures
One of the only genuine surprises with “Tournament of Champions” is that it actually has four screenwriting credits. That’s pretty amazing considering how little there is in terms of story. Even worse, it doesn’t move anything forward. No big revelations, not even new information worth noting. Just more escape rooms, this time with FAR less compelling players. Sure, the rooms are bigger and more intricate and the production design is pretty impressive. We get an electrified subway car, an Art Deco bank with a deadly laser grid, a miniature beach, etc. But with more complex rooms comes more complex solutions and the amount of conveniences and wild pin-point guesswork used to solve them is unintentionally hilarious (my favorite may be when one character enters a new room for the first time and states “There’s a refrigerator. I bet it’s our exit.”).
If you’re okay with watching a bland group of strangers run around and solve puzzles with some dying in various unimaginative ways, then “Tournament of Champions” may have enough to keep your attention. If you’re looking for a good story, compelling characters, or any reason to care, then you’re probably not going to find it here. Not even a ludicrous plot twist (if that’s what you want to call it) can add a charge to the mostly lifeless story. And that gets back to the biggest frustration. These movies have hinted at a deeper conspiracy and a potentially broader threat. That could be interesting. But at some point you have to start answering the many questions you raise. Then again, another $150 million at the box office could easily prove otherwise. “Escape Room: Tournament of Champions” is now showing in theaters.
To be completely honest, the upcoming Ghostbusters movie hasn’t been on my radar since it was first teased last year. But the new nostalgia-soaked trailer for “Ghostbusters: Afterlife” suddenly has me interested. This proper sequel to the original two movies overlooks the messy and misguided 2016 attempted reboot. The film is directed and co-written by Jason Reitman, the son of original director Ivan Reitman, who looks to reignite the once popular 80’s franchise for a new generation.
Set thirty years after the events of the second film, “Afterlife” focuses on a struggling single mother (Carrie Coon) and her two sons (McKenna Grace and Finn Wolfhard) who are evicted from their home and forced to move into a rundown old farmhouse left to them by her late father Egon Spengler. When tremors start shaking the nearby town of Summerville the kids quickly discover their grandfather came out to the remote Oklahoma area for a very specific reason. Paul Rudd fills out the cast playing a local school teacher and there may be a special cameo or two that we can forward to. It’s a good trailer and it has me genuinely interested in what Reitman and company have up their sleeves.
“Ghostbusters: Afterlife” premieres in theaters November 11th. Check out the trailer below and let me know if you’ll be seeing it or taking a pass.
When it comes to Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson the only thing bigger than his beefy biceps may be his larger-than-life personality. The convivial main event wrestler turned box office movie star has an enormous presence and an infectious charm that has made him the highest paid actor in Hollywood. It just so happens that one of the few people who can match those qualities on screen is also his co-star in the upcoming big-budget blockbuster “Jungle Cruise”.
Emily Blunt doesn’t self-promote quite like Johnson (few do), but she has the same sparkling charisma and effervescent allure as her brawny screenmate. And while she’s easily the better dramatic actor of the two, Blunt also has a sharp wit and a playful energy that easily matches the high-profile Johnson. That’s part of what makes “Jungle Cruise” such an exciting summer movie experience. It features two inherently lovable talents bouncing off each other like an old-school screwball duo. Oh, and it doesn’t hurt to have Disney bankrolling it to the tune of $200 million.
Image Courtesy of Walt Disney Studios
I doubt this will be the only place you read this, but this newest theme park ride inspired movie from the House of Mouse plays very much like “Pirates of the Caribbean” meets “The African Queen”. And if you look closer you can even see traces of “Raiders of the Lost Ark”, “Romancing the Stone” and “Tomb Raider”. From the very start it’s clear what “Jungle Cruise” aspires to be and a ton of money has been poured into the big action set pieces and digital effects. But what keeps it alive is the cracking chemistry between its two wonderful leads.
Blunt plays the adventurous and slightly neurotic Dr. Lily Houghton, a botanist and all-around go-getter. In the film’s frisky opening few minutes we get a good dose of her resourcefulness and resolve as she butts heads with the backwards patriarchy of 1916 England. Lily believes she has discovered the location of the mystical Tree of Life, a find that could potentially revolutionize modern medicine. But it’s dismissed as nothing more than myth and superstition by the stuffy all-male science society in London who refuse to back her expedition. Undeterred, Lily ‘borrows’ a certain artifact from the society’s archives and heads to South America with her cowardly but ever-loyal brother MacGregor (Jack Whitehall).
Lily’s map points to the heart of the Amazon jungle as the location of the Tree of Life. But there’s one pretty big problem – she doesn’t have a boat. Enter Johnson who plays Frank Wolff, the captain of a beat-up riverboat he affectionately calls La Quila. Frank’s gig of taking gullible tourists on shoddy jungle cruises isn’t enough to pay off his debt to a crotchety port manager played by Paul Giamatti. So he jumps at the chance to take Lily and MacGregor up the river for a handsome fee.
As you can probably guess, their journey is filled with plenty of danger – wild animals, violent rapids, unwelcoming natives. What you probably wouldn’t guess is that the biggest danger they face is a hilariously deranged German blu-blood in a submarine named Prince Joachim (a scene-stealing Jesse Plemons). He too believes in the Tree of Life and will do anything to find it before Lily, even if it means resurrecting a pack of creepy cursed conquistadors led by the always enjoyable but woefully underused Édgar Ramírez.
Image Courtesy of Walt Disney Studios
“Jungle Cruise” is directed by frequent Liam Neeson collaborator Jaume Collet-Serra who sets out to create a fun old-fashioned adventure with an equal amount of swashbuckling and slapstick. The script (from the trio of Michael Green, Glenn Ficarra and John Requa) is silly and light-hearted, reminiscent of the late-1960’s pulp you would find at a Saturday afternoon matinee. You see it most in the film’s first (and best) half, and that throwback vibe kept a smile on my face. In the second half the story commits to unpacking its mythology which frankly isn’t all that interesting. And there are a couple of weirdly out-of-tune scenes that feel like they belong in an entirely different movie. But those things turn out to be small issues because the filmmakers never lose sight of their biggest strengths – Johnson and Blunt.
Of course this is a major Disney blockbuster meaning that we also get action and visual effects aplenty. There is a ton of CGI; a bit too much in a few scenes. But the bulk of the film looks tremendous and the jungle settings are both beautiful and foreboding. But regardless of the high-dollar paint and polish, it always comes back to Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt. Of course they nail the comedy just as you would expect (I laughed a lot). But the surprise comes in the amount of warmth and sincerity they generate between them. They somehow manage to make this boisterous over-the-top adventure feel unexpectedly intimate. “Jungle Cruise opens this Friday (July 30th) in theaters and streaming on Disney+ Premier Access.
There was a time when Val Kilmer was one of the most sought after actors in Hollywood. In the 1980’s and through much of the 90’s Kilmer was everywhere and a long and prosperous career seemed all but a certainty. He played high-profile characters like Jim Morrison, Doc Holliday, even Batman. But in recent years his life has taken dramatically different form. A two-year battle with throat cancer left the star of such films as “Top Gun”, “Tombstone”, and “Heat” barely able to speak and on a feeding tube.
The new documentary “Val” recently premiered at the Cannes film Festival just ahead of its streaming release on Amazon Prime. It’s a intensely personal film with a deep sense of longing, not so much for a career that once was, but for a chance to finally tell his life story in his own words. Over the years Kilmer has shot and collected thousands of hours of video tapes and film reels. They include 16mm home movies, audition tapes, and behind the scenes video which co-directors Leo Scott and Ting Poo use to paint a unique and bittersweet portrait.
Image Courtesy of Amazon Studios
The narration was written by Kilmer himself and is presented from his perspective. It’s recited by Val’s 26-year-old son Jack whose voice carries an uncanny resemblance to his father’s. Full of old footage and peppered with the actor’s unique artistry, “Val” begins its first-person journey with a look into his life growing up with two brothers in the San Fernando Valley. His industrialist father and his horse-loving mother gave them a comfortable life even buying Roy Rogers’ old ranch when it went up for sale. The creative siblings turned the ranch into their own movie studio and nurtured there love for movie-making.
Our trek through Kilmer’s youth show there were also devastating heartaches. His parents would divorce when Val was 8-years-old due to his father’s many affairs. But nothing could prepare his family for the tragic death of his 15-year-old brother Wesley. From Kilmer’s own words “there were no more home videos, no more make-shift plays“. In a painful admission “Our family was never the same again.” He had lost not only his closest sibling but his best friend. It’s a loss he carries with him to this day.
One of the most compelling parts of “Val” is the intimate and eye-opening perspective it gives into Kilmer’s incredible yet complicated acting career. Kilmer and his handheld camera walk us across his professional timeline, beginning with his early days as the youngest person accepted into the Juilliard School in New York. We see his initiation into Hollywood with the hilarious “Top Secret!”. And of course his first taste of stardom that came with “Top Gun” and grew with films like “The Doors” and “Batman Forever”. And the film doesn’t shy away from his later struggles and his effort to reinvent himself through one-man stage show titled “Cinema Twain”.
Along the way Kilmer shares his own personal behind-the-scenes footage taken from numerous movie sets and featuring co-stars like Kurt Russell, Marlon Brando, Mira Sorvino, Tom Cruise, David Thewlis, and Tom Sizemore. Some of the most insightful bits include hearing him express his excitement and then utter disappointment in playing Batman. And his video from the troubled set of 1996’s “The Island of Dr. Moreau” that includes a spat with the film’s director John Frankenheimer.
Image Courtesy of Amazon Studios
The documentary also touches on the long-held perception that Kilmer was “difficult” to work with. But the Val we see is more of a perfectionist than a trouble-maker. He certainly had his run-ins and you sense there are things he regrets. But Kilmer was always about the art and finding the soul in every role. He brought a seriousness and an intensity to his work which led to some viewing him as “difficult”. Media outlets quickly picked up on it and ran. But there are just as many who worked with Kilmer that pushed back. We see clips from Oliver Stone, Mira Sorvino, Robert Downey, Jr. and others who outright refute the claims.
In Oliver Stone’s clip he called Val Kilmer “a puzzle inside a mystery wrapped in an enigma”. The man we see in “Val” fits that description but not in some overly eccentric way. He is a man who once found fame but was never comfortable with it. He was never driven by fame. Instead he set out to find roles that would “transform” him. “Val” shows us that professional side, but also the private side that few outside of his family ever got to see. The movie sometimes gets lost in the artist’s self-reflection, but it’s hard to knock something this personal and cathartic. “Val” opens in select theaters Friday (July 23rd) and streaming on Amazon Prime August 6th.
Back on June 29th many readers finally got their hands on the hotly anticipated first novel from filmmaker Quentin Tarantino. It’s 400-page novelization (of sorts) of his 2019 big screen hit “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”. I wasn’t able to nab a copy during its first couple of weeks, but I FINALLY got one shipped my way. I’ve gobbled up the first thirty pages and I can already see it expanding (in a great way) on the movie. Will it keep up this early wild energy or fall over into pointless self-indulgence? I’ll have to get back to you, but so far I’m hooked!
Have you read Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” novelization? Are you planning to? I’d love to know.
Keith & the Movies 