It’s a mix of genres for this post. I’ll start off with the biggest title.
This one is getting a lot of attention online. As a Netflix exclusive that stars Sandra Bullock, that’s not too surprising. Thriller/horror movies get a lot of buzz these days so hopes were high for this book translation. Bullock plays Malorie, a woman on her own who is expecting her first child in a few months. One day an epidemic breaks out, some kind of creature that compels people to commit suicide when they see it. These beings quickly devastates the world population and as the movie jumps from past to present, the invasion continues for 5 years with no reprieve.
I had high hopes going into this and it was more or less a let down at every turn. It was surprisingly boring which was really weird considering the premise. First and foremost, every character comes off as a character, not a real person. Everyone clearly has their typecast role and no one deviates from it. Bullock does a fine job with her acting, but it’s not enough to save the movie. When you first meet her character, she’s obnoxious and vapid, so I never connected with her. Despite being the heroine and doing truly heroic things at times, I didn’t care what happened to her.
The film is very conservative in its horror too as it never dares to show anything that intense or gruesome. A lot happens off camera. The creatures are seemingly ethereal, they can’t interact with solid objects (can’t open doors, break things) so the basic survival method is, cover the windows and stay inside. That’s not too interesting. The interest would be survival in such conditions and the stress it puts on the people who are together. Again, that all falls rather flat as while there is in-fighting, it never seems like a threat. Running out of resources never felt like a problem. While scenarios are made to throw chaos and surprises at you, all of it is predictable so again, there’s no weight to it. The creatures are shown as little more than a shadow so that’s disappointing as well.
The ending felt all wrong too as you watched someone being chased basically the entire time get a “don’t worry, it’s cool here” break. The whole thing just isn’t interesting. A few days ago I read a theory that the movie is a metaphor for racism (if you stick your head in the sand, racism doesn’t exist because you can’t see it) which is way more interesting and
Hollywood tends to run with a hive mind. A theme or genre becomes the thing to do and similar projects get worked on at different studios. In this case, it’s the Jungle Book. Disney got their reboot/re-imagining out first to great fan fair. This version, directed by Andy Serkis, took longer and ended up not getting a theatrical release. Enter the Netflix pick-up crew.
I liked Jon Favreau’s take. It was a gorgeous movie at times and it played it more or less safe in the Disney mold. Mowgli is a bit more grounded, certainly less bombastic. I might even like it a bit more as I thought Jungle Book dragged on for too long. I definitely felt more of a connection with this version of the Mowgli character. You rarely leave his side and his story arc, being orphaned and raised by wolves, accepted on the fringes but still very much alone, to be very compelling. A kid trying to fit in a world he doesn’t exactly fit into and being shoved into another world he wants no part in. I really liked watching his guardians Bagheera and Baloo do their best for him, to the point where they both fight over his well being. When Mowgli gets cast out of the pack, I felt heartbroken over it. Then, when he interacts with people for the first time, it’s horrible but he’s soon shown compassion and there’s an interesting angle there about being accepted. Because he looks like everyone else for the first time in his life there’s is a level of basic need and comfort there.
In time he sees the ugly side of humanity and that forces Mowgli to make up his own mind about what family means to him and what his purpose in life is. Shere Kahn is kept as a better menace in this one too (JB veers off to the monkey king for a while with a massive action sequence, one of the scenes I think Mowgli does better) and I really liked Mowgli’s relationship with Bhoot, which I think is something JB is lacking.
Jungle Book does look better though, it’s much more majestic. The animals in Mowgli look off and it took me a while to figure out why. In the animated and Favreau versions of this story, the animals are romanticized versions of wild animals. They all look healthy and happy. In this version, the animal’s fur is matted with grime, and they are malnourished. They look like they live in a jungle and for the time at least, food isn’t plentiful. You see it most on Baloo, who in the animated version looks like he’s had his fair share of honey (he might have a sharecropping deal with Winnie the Pooh). Serkis Baloo looks like he could use another 150 pounds or so.
A strong ending put the finishing touches on a movie I enjoyed way more than I thought I would.
It’s important to go into a dumb comedy knowing it’s a dumb comedy. It sets expectations. The title and synopsis of the move make it pretty obvious as to what’s going to happen and the movie delivers (the package) on that. Four teenage friends go on a camping trip and an accident forces the crew to help their friend save his most precious body part.
Produced by the guys who made the show Workaholics and the movie Game Over, Man! you can guess the levels of cursing, situations, and absurdity this movie goes to. It actually goes much
I got what I wanted out of this. There are laughs sprinkled throughout with one standout scene that I thought was hilarious. The cast is great and every character gets a backstory and the time to be more than just window dressing. Yes it’s dumb, yes it’s gross, but that’s the goal and I think it’s a well made movie. The escalation of terrible events is done just right and with a 90 minute run-time, it doesn’t overstay it’s welcome. Watch this instead of Bird Box, you’ll probably get more out of it.