Movie Review: Sherlock Gnomes

Sherlock Gnomes ** / *****

Directed by: John Stevenson.

Written by: Kevin Cecil and Andy Riley and Richard Sweren and Ben Zazove.

Starring: Emily Blunt (Juliet), Johnny Depp (Sherlock Gnomes), James McAvoy (Gnomeo), Maggie Smith (Lady Bluebury), Chiwetel Ejiofor (Watson), Michael Caine (Lord Redbrick), Stephen Merchant (Paris), Mary J. Blige (Irene), Jamie Demetriou (Moriarty)

 

If there is some value to Sherlock Gnomes – the new animated adventure, a sequel to Gnomeo & Juliet (2011) – which I did not, because my oldest child was born that year, so we weren’t going to movies with her yet – it will be in introducing kids to Sherlock Holmes at all. My daughters already know him – kind of – from repeated viewings of one of my childhood favorites (The Great Mouse Detective) which has become one of their childhood favorites, or from walking in on mommy and daddy as we watch the Benedict Cumberbatch/Martin Freedom version on Netflix, as we’ve done recently. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s detective, and his sidekick, remain relevant, in part because filmmakers and TV shows have never really let die off. Those stories – which I devoured as a kid/teenager – are still great, so if Sherlock Gnomes gets some kids to eventually read them – or watch the many incantations of him over the years, then I guess it’s a good thing. He movie itself however isn’t particularly good – it’s really all that funny, or all that exciting, and the novelty of talking gnomes, and a lot of gnome based puns, wears off pretty quickly. It’s serviceable children’s entertainment – my kids liked it, for the most part – but it’s not all that memorable.

 

The story revolves the gnomes from the first movie, now relocated into London. The title couple Gnomeo & Juliet (James McAvoy and Emily Blunt) have just been handed the reigns for the new garden by their parents – which at first seems exciting, and soon starts to feel like real work. Their relationship suffers as a result – because Juliet is so caught up in remaking the new garden, she takes Gnomeo for granted “The garden cannot wait. You can”. Gnomeo being a man, does what men do best in this situation – sulk like a little child. But they cannot spend too much time brooding, because soon all of their friends – and all other gnomes in London – have been taken (the funniest moment in the film is a news broadcast about the gnome theft, that acknowledges who ridiculous it is to be talking about gnome theft on TV). In walks Sherlock Gnomes (Johnny Depp) and his put upon sidekick Watson (Chiwetel Ejiofor) to investigate. He’s convinced the perpetrator is his arch nemesis Moriarty (Jamie Demetriou), a bright yellow pie mascot they thought dead. They have 24 hours to find the gnomes, or they will be smashed.

 

The film is rather dull and lifeless, despite the huge dramatic stakes of gnome slaughter at play here. I don’t really think the casting oh Johnny Depp really helps here – he long ago seems to have forgotten how to act or sound like a relatable person, and here he takes Sherlock’s narcissism to extremes. Depp, who is capable of being great (but he only shows that occasionally now) too often falls back on easy tricks, and he does that here. The film may have been better off leaving Gnomeo & Juliet out of the film completely – they don’t add very much here, and basically get in the way. If there is a saving grace in the cast, it’s Ejiofor as Watson – who is quite charming and funny (full disclosure – I always love Watson in Sherlock Holmes stories).

 

The story moves along at a brisk enough pace, but the filmmakers do try and add a few twists to the plot, all of which are telegraphed well in advance (perhaps I’m being too hard here, and the filmmakers aimed those twists like they aimed the rest of the movie – at children – but even my 6 and a half year old called them). There is a lot of music in the film – most by executive producer Elton John, although Mary J. Blige does show up as Irene, Sherlock’s ex-girlfriend to sing a song about how awful he is, which is kind of amusing (Irene is a character I wished they did A LOT more with). But basically, Sherlock Gnomes is disposable kid’s entertainment – good to keep they entertained for 90 minutes, and not much else.

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Movie Review: Pyewacket

Pyewacket *** / *****

Directed by: Adam MacDonald.

Written by: Adam MacDonald.

Starring: Nicole Muñoz (Leah), Laurie Holden (Mrs. Reyes), Chloe Rose (Janice), Eric Osborne (Aaron), Romeo Carere (Rob), James McGowan (Rowan Dove), Bianca Melchior (Pyewacket), Missy Peregrym (voice), Neil Whitely (Detective). 

 

It was just last week when I reviewed Paco Plaza’s Veronica, about a teenage girl, who holds a séance to communicate with her dead father, and gets more than she bargained for. I didn’t think much of that film that was a slow burn, until a fairly satisfying finale – but ultimately indulged in every cliché imaginable through its runtime. Now comes Pyewacket, a film about a teenage girl, who performs a blood incantation, to get even with her mother who she is upset with following the death of her father, and gets more than she bargained for. The two films are similar in some ways – but while I don’t necessarily think Pyewacket is overly original either – it is a horror film that worked for me, slowly getting under your skin, and building to a truly frightening climax. The two films are perhaps a study in how horror, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.

 

The film stars Nicole Muñoz as Leah – a teenager girl, who has started hanging out with the “goth” crowd following the death of her father. Their interest in the occult is somewhat comforting to her – interest in that implies there is an afterlife, so it provides some of the same comfort as religion does, but is “cooler”. Her mother, (Laurie Holden) isn’t doing well however – she cannot seem to get over the death of her husband, or reminders of him, so instead she decides to move an hour away from everything Leah knows, to a remote house in the middle of the woods (seems logical). One day in the car during an argument, her mother says something that infuriates Leah – so that night, she heads to the woods to call upon a spirit – Pyewacket – to punish her mother. It’s something – much like that séance in Veronica – which a grieving, angry teenager may well do, without meaning it. She almost immediately regrets it – but it’s too late, as the spirit makes their presence felt almost immediately.

 

Pyewacket is a slow burn of a horror movie – first getting us to care about Leah, and even her mother and her friends, and then working to scare us. I liked how the film shows the teenagers interest in the occult, and how confident they are all in how cool it – right up until they actually confront it in real life – Leah’s friends Janice (Chloe Rose) comes up to the house to try and observe what is actually happening, because she thinks it’s great – but the next morning, she’s hiding in the car, freaked out and wanting to go home.

 

Pyewacket makes great use of its setting to help deliver the scares – from the dark forest that surrounds there new home, to the attic that Leah repeatedly has to go to – either to try and figure out what that strange noise is, or to try and get away from it. The film is nicely subtle in the scares too – it doesn’t lead the audience as much with music or jump scares, but like the slow burn of the film itself, the scares are similarly subtle at first, and then mount as the film continues.

 

I would not argue with someone who felt the opposite of me – that Veronica was incredibly scary, and Pyewacket was too slow. Different strokes for different folks I guess. But to me, I was mainly bored by Veronica – a film that didn’t scare me, and felt like it was going through the motions. I was scared though by Pyewacket – enough that I really should go back and catch up with Adam Macdonald’s other horror film – Backcountry. He clearly has horror movie chops – and while Pyewacket isn’t overly original, it delivers. 

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Movie Review: Small Town Crime

Small Town Crime *** / *****

Directed by: Eshom Nelms and Ian Nelms.

Written by: Eshom Nelms and Ian Nelms.

Starring: John Hawkes (Mike Kendall), Anthony Anderson (Teddy Banks), Octavia Spencer (Kelly Banks), Robert Forster (Steve Yendel), Clifton Collins Jr. (Mood), Jeremy Ratchford (Orthopedic), James Lafferty (Tony Lama), Michael Vartan (Detective Crawford), Daniel Sunjata (Detective Whitman), Don Harvey (Randy), Stefanie Scott (Ivy), Caity Lotz (Heidi), Dale Dickey (Leslie), Michelle Lang (Tina), Stefania Barr (Kristy), Victor Medina (Fredrico), Sean Carrigan (Julian), Adam Johnson (Oliver).

 

The new neo-noir film Small Town Crime stars John Hawkes as an alcoholic ex-cop, who will eventually decide that maybe becoming a private investigator would be more his speed. That way he can drink to excess, and not have to obey any of those pesky laws cops are supposed to follow. The film honestly feels almost like a pilot episode of the type of cop show you may see on AMC or FX or HBO – and may well be very good. Hawkes, in particular, is very good in the movie – he’s pretty much the whole reason to see the film, which otherwise feels rather one-dimensional, with a case at its core that frankly isn’t all that interesting or tricky to figure out. Still, if they announced today that yes, this really was just a pilot, and a new show was debuting soon – or that this was going to launch a series of Mike Kendall mysteries movies with Hawkes, I’d gladly watch the result.

 

Hawkes’ Mike Kendall is a drunk, who we first see passed out in his house, while outside his hot road is parked on the lawn, having mowed down the white picket fence surrounding it. All Kendall wants to do is get back on the police force – but that isn’t likely to happen, as he was drunk on duty when an shooting ending up killing three people, and while its debatable as to if the result would be different if he were sober, it’s still not a good look. He will happily keep cashing his unemployment checks and go drinking every night – especially since his adoptive sister Kelly (Octavia Spencer), and her husband (and Kendall’s drinking buddy) Teddy (Anthony Anderson) are willing to help cover the mortgage.

 

But things change early one morning when Kendall wakes up in the desert, and as he’s driving back to town, finds a young woman who has been brutally beaten, and left at the side of the road to die. He takes her to the hospital, where a couple of former colleagues thank Kendall, but tell him to stay out of the way of what becomes a murder investigation. Kendall, of course, will not – and eventually makes friends with the girl’s rich grandfather (Robert Forster), who isn’t happy that his granddaughter is dead, even if she had become a drug addicted prostitute. Eventually, Kendall will come in contact with more and more unsavory people, and a bigger conspiracy than he realizes.

 

To be honest, most of the plot of the movie seems to be on autopilot – a dead prostitute means eventually we’ll be introduced to other prostitutes, at least one pimp, and sooner or later, the rich men who want to keep their dalliances with said prostitutes quiet. You know the drill, and Small Town Crime doesn’t deviate from it. There are also characters here that don’t seem to make a lot of sense, and are often jettisoned for large chunks of the plot – like Octavia Spencer, too good for her pretty much meaningless, small role. The film, written and directed by brothers Eshom and Ian Nelms has an interesting character at its core, and not a lot else.

 

But that character is interesting, and in the role, John Hawkes delivers a fine performance. Hawkes has been around for years now – often playing morally compromised characters that you still feel a degree of sympathy with. He’s one of those guys who makes me think of Roger Ebert old Walsh/Stanton rule that said that “any movie that featured either M. Emmett Walsh or Harry Dean Stanton cannot be all bad”. We should probably hate Kendall, but we don’t – mainly because Hawkes keeps him so interesting. The rest of the movie is a by-the-numbers, indie neo-noir – well done as far as it goes, but nothing too exciting. Hawkes makes it better than it really has any business being.

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Movie Review: Lego DC Superheroes: The Flash

Lego DC Comics Super Heroes: The Flash ** ½ / *****

Directed by: Ethan Spaulding.

Written by: James Krieg & Jeremy Adams based on the DC Comics characters.

Starring: James Arnold Taylor (The Flash / Barry Allen), Kate Micucci (Zatanna), Kevin Michael Richardson (Doctor Fate), Troy Baker (Batman / Bruce Wayne), Nolan North (Superman / Clark Kent / Kal-El / Killer Croc / Waylon Jones), Grey DeLisle (Wonder Woman / Diana Prince), Khary Payton (Cyborg / Victor Stone), Dwight Schultz (Reverse-Flash / Eobard Thawne), Eric Bauza (The Atom / B'dg / Jimmy Olsen), Tom Kenny (Plastic Man / Patrick 'Eel' O'Brian / The Penguin / Oswald Cobblepot), Phil LaMarr (Firestorm / Jason Rusch), Vanessa Marshall (Poison Ivy / Pamela Isley), Dee Bradley Baker (Captain Boomerang / Aquaman / Arthur Curry), Jason Spisak (The Joker), Audrey Wasilewski (Mayor).

 

No, I don’t usually review direct to video, animated film featuring superheroes, aimed at children. But my daughter has fallen in love with the DC Super Hero Girls, and as a result, the DC comic book heroes in general. Wonder Woman is her favorite – naturally – but through that, she has fallen for the others, and we have watched many of the DC Lego movies so far – the DC Super Hero Girls Brain Drain most often, but also a number of the Batman/Justice League ones. Their latest is The Flash, and its 78 minutes of mainly goofy, harmless fun. It doesn’t have the inventiveness or fun of something made for the big screen like The Lego Batman Movie – but it’s more entertaining than it probably should be.

 

In the film, The Flash meets his match when someone calling himself Reverse-Flash shows up (it’s easy to tell them apart, because Reverse-Flash wears the same costume as Flash, except they’ve the colors flipped red and yellow around). Reverse-Flash is from the future, and tricks Flash into repeatedly go back in time to live the same day over and over again – all so he can sever the Flash’s relationship with something called the Speed Force (don’t ask) and turn everyone against Flash and rob him of his powers. When Flash goes to get them back – going to the place where the Speed Force originated from – well, everyone learns some valuable lessons.

 

I’m not going to try and pretend this is a particularly good movie. It isn’t – it has the feel of exactly what it is – a direct-to-DVD/VOD animated film aimed at children. But it’s goofy fun, done with the same spirit as all the Lego movies – which don’t take themselves too seriously, and find some fun ways to tell the stories visually. You can call it cynical if you want to – especially since the movie throws in cameos from Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Aqua Man, The Joker, Penguin, etc. – as a way to ensure that kid fans of those heroes/villains will also watch – and you wouldn’t really be wrong, but so be it. These movies work well for what they intended to do – which is to be the superhero movies you can show your younger children so they don’t have to deal with the violence of Wonder Woman (we’re getting closer to the age where we’ll let our oldest watch last year’s film – but aren’t there yet) or all the self-serious brooding of the rest of the DC cinematic universe. It’s goofy and silly and harmless, and given what some studios think is worth putting into theaters for kids (say, Sherlock Gnomes) better than it probably has to be in order to make money.

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Movie Review: Tomb Raider

Tomb Raider ** ½ / *****

Directed by: Roar Uthaug.

Written by: Geneva Robertson-Dworet & Alastair Siddons.

Starring: Alicia Vikander (Lara Croft), Dominic West (Lord Richard Croft), Walton Goggins (Mathias Vogel), Daniel Wu (Lu Ren), Kristin Scott Thomas (Ana Miller), Derek Jacobi (Mr. Yaffe), Hannah John-Kamen (Sophie), Nick Frost (Max).

 

A part of me admires the new Tomb Raider, which is, of course, a completely unnecessary and unasked for reboot of a movie franchise that died 15 years ago, and hasn’t once been brought up in a conversation since. All those years ago, it was Angelina Jolie as the ass-kicking, brilliant Lara Croft, who had to shoot people and solve puzzles in equal doses. Now it’s Alicia Vikander, who turns out to be shockingly perfect for the role, and carries the movie much farther than she should be able to. Throw in decent action direction by Roar Uthaug (getting his wish that was evident in his 2015 Norwegian film The Wave – which was to come to Hollywood to make big studio movies), who is refreshing more inspired by the likes of Spielberg than most current action directors, who seem to want to be Michael Bay for some reason (if you want to be generous, say Paul Greengrass instead). All this carries the movie farther than it should, considering how poorly plotted the film is, and how any character not named Lara Croft is basically one dimensional. Still, for this type of film, it’s better than it probably should be.

 

When the film opens, Lara isn’t the globe-trotting, ass-kicking, puzzle solver yet – but a young woman living in London, still angry at her father (Dominic West) for disappearing seven years previous. She could have him declared dead, and get a boatload of money out of the deal – he was very rich – but instead, she prefers to be poor – making her living as a bike courier (an early highlight is a terrific bike sequence with Lara as the fox in a fox hunt). But soon, Lara discovers a secret room of her fathers, full of research on Himiko – a Japanese queen, with secret, deadly powers. The video her dad left tells her to destroy everything about Himiko and move on with her life – so, of course, she does the exact opposite. She ends up teaming up with a drunken boat captain, Lu Ren (Daniel Wu), whose father also disappeared along with Lara’s, to travel to the remote, uninhabited Japanese island their fathers were travelling to all those years ago. What they find there is scary – not least because of Vogel (Walton Goggins), who has been stuck there for years, trying to find Himiko’s tomb, and whose bosses won’t let him leave until he does.

 

The film is basically a 1980s style action adventure film in the Indiana Jones vein, with Vikander proving herself to be a wonderful action star. Her chiseled body is admired throughout the film, but not in a creepy, leering sexual way. The same goes for her relationship with Wu’s Lu Ren – they have instant chemistry, but it’s not sexual – he’s not there to be a love interest, but their respect for each other is mutual. Throughout the sequences on the island, Vikander has to run, jump, swim, fight and shoot a bow and arrow, all of which she does so with style and grace. She even manages to sell the films more badly manipulative emotional moments, by not overplaying them. An Oscar winner for Ex Machina (what’s that you say, she won for The Danish Girl – sorry, you’re wrong), Vikander is proof that sometimes having a great actor in the lead role of an action movie can go a long way to saving it.

 

Basically though, the film eventually wears out its welcome. The film is rather obviously plotted, and really does drag to a halt whenever the characters have to sit around and talk about what’s happening, what just happened, or what will happen. Characters who are not Lara often get good introductions, but then the film doesn’t do much with them – witness the way they shunt Lu Ren to the side once they reach the island, in favor of Goggins’ villain – who makes a big impression in his opening scenes, and then not much afterwards.

 

Yet, when the film is basically Vikander and action sequences, it works just about as well as a film like this could. Yes, you can tell it’s based on a video game, because it kind of has that structure to it. But those moments work well enough that I’d look forward to another Vikander action vehicle – even a sequel to this – much more than I did for the second Lara Croft movie with Jolie all those years ago.

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Movie Review: Veronica

Veronica ** / *****

Directed by: Paco Plaza.

Written by: Fernando Navarro and Paco Plaza.

Starring: Sandra Escacena (Verónica), Bruna González (Lucía), Claudia Placer (Irene), Iván Chavero (Antoñito), Ana Torrent (Ana), Consuelo Trujillo (Hermana Muerte), Ángela Fabián (Rosa), Carla Campra (Diana).

 

In horror films there is a difference between a slow burn and the downright bland – and while that difference can vary by viewer, I’d argue that the Spanish horror film Veronica is much more of the later. The film was released on Netflix earlier this month – after being on the festival circuit last fall – and after receiving some attention as a film Netflix claimed it was a film so scary that people couldn’t finish it. That, and the fact that I admired the first two [Rec] films co-directed by Paco Plaza who made this film, made me curious to check it out. Disappointingly though Veronica is basically a standard issue possession film, and one that hits basically every cliché imaginable during its runtime. The climax is pretty good – but it takes a long time to get there.

 

The film takes place in 1991 in Madrid (it is loosely based on a real case) and the title character, played by Sandra Escacena is a 15 year-old-girl, who basically has to act as a parent to her younger twin sisters, and much younger brother. Their father is dead, and their mother basically works non-stop at a local bar. It falls onto Veronica to get the kids up, feed them, get them to school, and then bring them home, feed them and put them to bed – all while going to school herself. One day, during an eclipse, she goes down to the basement of her school (spoiler alert – the basement is creepy) with her two friends and an Ouija board to try and contact her dad. She contacts something alright, as things go horribly awry, in a way that she basically does not remember. She spends the rest of the film is a mounting state of paranoia, as she starts having dark visions of a dark man in their apartment, threatening her siblings. Her mom doesn’t believe her and her best friend is creeped out by her because of what happened with the Ouija board. The only person who seems to give her any advice at all is an old, blind nun at the school – but she’s more on hand to provide some creepy moments during the long (long) hour between the Séance and the climax.

 

Basically, Veronica hits ever note you expect to see in a possession movie from the innocent girl introduction of Veronica, right up until the climax. As a movie like The Conjuring proved a few years ago, a gifted director can make those clichés feel fresh and scary again, but it takes some work. The best thing about Veronica is the lead performance by newcomer Sandra Escacena, who really does sell her mounting paranoia and terror, as well as her relationship with her siblings, that really is deeply felt and important to her. She’s a find for sure.

 

Other than a decent sense of place though, Plaza never really figures out to make much of the movie all that scary. I understand that he’s going for a slow burn here – gradually building up the tension before finally releasing it with the climax. But slow burns work when each scene builds on the last, and there are some genuinely unexpected moments in the film. That doesn’t really happen in Veronica, which has some okay individual scenes, but they don’t build on each other – and every moment is too neatly telegraphed in advance.

 

Yes, the climax mostly work – even if, like the rest of the movie, you know what’s coming before the film does. But other than that, Veronica is basically a dull, predictable horror film that plays out exactly how you expect it to. I suspect that some people turned it off on Netflix because they were bored.

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Movie Review: Take Your Pills

Take Your Pills ** / *****

Directed by: Alison Klayman.

 

Alison Klayman’s Take Your Pills is an advocacy documentary that basically argues – not incorrectly – that as a society, we are over medicating our children – one drugs like Ritalin and Adderall, which is essentially speed. We get them hooked on the drugs, that help keep them alert and focused, with no real plan to ever get them off the drugs – and as a result, we have a society of children on the drugs, who grow into adults who are still on the drugs. The most striking moment in the film comes late, when a college senior says that when they get out into the world, they don’t think they’ll continue to use Adderall – that they’ll be able to leave work behind at work, not like in university where you have to stay up all night to study, and then immediately cuts to an adult who says he takes Adderall for work only, and if he didn’t have to work, he’d stop taking the drug. It’s a moment that rings true, because everyone is always coming up with excuses why they “need” something they want, but that at some point in the future, they will stop.

 

Had the film had more moments like that, it would probably work better than it ultimately does. My tolerance for this type of advocacy documentary usually is relatively low, and Take Your Pills is an example as to why they don’t work well for me. While director Alison Klayman at least gives people the opportunity to defend the use of these drugs – particularly doctors who don’t see a problem prescribing it, or in one ill-advised side story, a company who sells non-prescription versions of the drugs – it’s clear that Klayman doesn’t really agree with them, and rushes them off the screen rather quickly. She is, in effect, paying lip service to that side, while spending most of the rest of the time condemning the over prescription of the drugs. It’s a position that I happen to agree with – not every restless kid needs to be on the drug, and because so many kids are on it, it creates a culture where something as serious as giving your child a prescription drug on a permanent basis is seen as routine. Yet Klayman casts her net so wide in finding the stories of those effected, and the doctors and researchers who have something to say about it, the personal stories really do get lost. In the case of the trees getting lost for the forest.

 

That is a shame, because there are some interesting people in the documentary – the former NFL player, who started taking Adderall as a professional, and needed to get a doctor’s note, so it would be considered a performance enhancing drug for instance. Or the college artist who has been on it since third grade, and it bitter about it – and wants off of it, and his mother, who expressed at least some regret, while still defending that position. The movie has quick sequences dealing with use of the drug at university in general – where kids with prescriptions sell it to those who don’t or on Wall Street, where is has replaced cocaine as the stimulant of choice. All of these stories could be docs of their own – at least short ones – and perhaps would have been more interesting than Take Your Pills ends up being.

 

What we do get is a mountain of statistics thrown at us – and as much as Klayman tries to jazz up the style in those presentations, there is only so much you can do with, and a lot of doctors and researchers explaining the effects, the dangers, and how similar the drugs really are to meth. They even compare it to the opioid crisis in America.

 

The problem ultimately is though that Klayman doesn’t really find anything new here. This has been a well-documented problem for years now, so Klayman’s doc feels like it’s too little too late. There is some good stuff, but it’s buried under a mountain of good intentions.

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