Wednesday 8 August 2018

A Walk Among the Tombstones (2014)

Pleasingly propulsive, but ultimately a mix of grimy and cheesy, with cliches on both sides, such as the elaborate and sadistic serial killers, the action-packed finale where the killers start to act like Michael Myers, and the straight-talking street kid who thaws the grizzled protagonist's heart.
Rating: Fine

Tuesday 7 August 2018

High-Rise (2015)

Sumptuous production, starts off intriguing, but runs out of ideas about halfway through, substituting allegory for narrative.
Rating: Bad

Saturday 4 August 2018

The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017)

hHd to give up after an hour of emotionless performances and dialogue. It was as if a shitty AI had made a thriller, creating the script, direction, performances and score but not understanding how any of them work. Apparently this is the director's 'style' - i.e. pointless gimmick.
Rating: Awful

The Big Short (2015)

This film is massively didactic - this is essentially edutainment - but it owns it and does so with powerful performances, sharp direction and editing and a tangible sense of outrage and terror.
Rating: Very Good

Thursday 2 August 2018

Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018)

Some very inventive action sequences and comedy setpieces. However, the narrative does feel overstuffed and characterisation suffers as a result. Also, the loose improv feel of the comedy dialogue doesn't really work - a Shane Black style polish would have really helped, I think.

I probably prefer it to the first one overall...

EDIT: on a re-watch, I think the issue is less that it's overstuffed and more that the antagonists are out of whack: Ghost has almost identical goals to the heroes and never works as a villain because the films pulls its punches to maintain the redemption ending. They should have made her an ally early on and had the Feds and crooks as stronger obstacles throughout. It didn't feel so inventive the second time round either; if I were to rate it again I'd probably knock it down by at least half a star...
Rating: Good