My first thought when going to see this movie was, "It's not rated 'R'??" It's such a dark and macabre film. A superhero movie to change all the rules of superhero movies. And while it almost does, it's difficult to do so when you go for a PG-13 rating. Although, I understand why. Widening your audience means more butts in the seats. And those who would want it to be rated R will probably still think it's rated R.
After the death of Superman, US intelligence agent, Amanda Waller (Viola Davis), wants to put together a team of criminals to go on dangerous missions at no risk, since they're seen as expendable.
Of the ensemble cast, the bigger names consist of Will Smith as the hit man, Deadshot, Margot Robbie as The Joker's girlfriend, Harley Quinn, and Jared Leto as The Joker, himself.
I'd like to preface this all by saying I enjoyed the film. It's not terrible. I'd watch it again, and probably even buy it on DVD. It does a lot of things right, but it's not without its fair share of hiccups.
You can't help but notice that the DC cinematic universe is always playing catchup to the Marvel one. And it doesn't have to. This was its chance to do something totally different. And in some ways it does--or at least, sets itself up to in the future. But the random interjections of jokes amidst action scenes don't feel fluid, but forced. DC is supposed to be much darker and less tongue-in-cheek. Less quippy.
DC, in some sense, has far more interesting and unique characters--especially villains--than Marvel. They've grown to be more twisted over the years, and this film tries to use that to its advantage, but it just doesn't always work.
That's not to say it never does. This year's Batman v Superman film uses cheesy filters to make it feel dark. In Suicide Squad it's more convincing. It's dark. Really dark. But you can't help feel like the film is torn between sinister and cartoony. Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy succeeds at this perfectly. But Suicide Squad is trying to be both Dark Knight and Avengers at the same time. I'm not so sure that's possible.
It could have benefitted from being more serious. The film starts out comfortably fitting into its own universe, but the random bits of levity are often jarring, making it seem like the film is trying to be as appealing to its more popular contemporary. Yet, it never has to. The material is great on its own. And we won't blame writer-director David Ayer, because apparently, it was the studio who demanded there be more humor scattered throughout.
This is what Marvel does very well. In the Avengers films, entire scenes don't come to a grinding halt whenever Iron Man says something funny. The humor blends into the action. It doesn't combat it. Here, the action scenes were the only times the film was free of jokes.
And we don't mind levity. However, in this scenario, the jokes should have been darker--not cuter. But with Robbie delivering them, that's what you get.
They seem to want her to be the focal point of the laughs, but I just wanted her to stop. You don't always buy in to her jokes, and she just ends up getting annoying. Smith, however, is the unsung comedic talent of the film. His timing is as good as ever and it never feels forced--fitting into the Marvel vibe they're going for.
Leto as The Joker was perfect because he wasn't overexposed. Every time we see him, he's gone moments later, making us want more. Robbie is in almost the entire film. You're supposed to love her antihero, but you never really do. Not enough is given to us. We end up just feeling indifferent.
There's a scene towards the beginning of the film where Davis' character is sitting down at a table, explaining one-by-one the backstory of each character. it takes about 10 minutes and freezes any plot progression that's going on. The normal version of me would have hated this in any other situation, but it may be the best part of this movie. We're being introduced to these interesting, complex, deranged characters. We get get excited about what's to come. The filmmakers want us to fall in love with these antiheroes, but this is the only time it truly lets us.
Despite the lack of action sequences, the pacing's fairly good, and the film is entertaining everywhere else. However, it has a long way to go to be considered great.
I really want these new DC films to be of the best quality, but I fear that they can't. Not as long as they're too preoccupied with trying to be Marvel. Honestly, if I never saw another Marvel film again, I wouldn't be devastated. It's time for something new, and DC can give us that. They almost had it here.
Twizard Rating: 78
In 1996, we didn't have a whole lot of alien invasion movies. In fact, Independence Day was, by far, the biggest one ever in existence. It prided itself on it. And you could say it started an avalanche of similar genre films in the 20 years since its release. So, naturally, the sequel needed to be much much bigger. Luckily, it delivers.
The new alien ship spans an entire continent, and Earth's existence is much more threatened this time around. It turns out that the same aliens from the last movie are back to annihilate our planet.
Like the first film, there are a handful of story lines. Many people banning together for a common cause. While not helping fix the depth issue of these movies, that's how we would need to do it in real life. Especially for an attack of this magnitude.
But what helps continue the original realism from the first film is slightly negated by the futuristic feel from the get-go. Drones hover around an ultramodern Washington D.C. and there is an entire group of military personnel living on the Moon. While 1996 felt like 1996, 2016 is more along the lines of Back to the Future Part 2.
While the action is big, the CGI feels very unoriginal and uninspired.
But that's all forgivable. What's not is the convoluted premise. It may not seem to matter. We get, more or less, that there's a big alien trying to wipe out our race, but we're unsure why it's happening, how it's different from the first film, and why anyone in the movie knows what they know.
Oh, and the acting is horrendous. Will Smith's stepson, Dylan, from the original is all grown up now, following in Smith's footsteps as a military pilot, and someone must've informed him to utilize his entire face when delivering each line. He gives his own version of the Bill Pullman speech from 1996. It's awful. He's not the actor who played the role in the original. But at this point, they might as well have just hired the same guy. This current actor has no obvious benefit over the first. Maybe it's because he's good-looking? Yeah, that's important.
The rest of his cohorts are almost just as bad. They're obviously hired for their appearances, rather than their acting abilities. And the dialogue is already dumbed-down way before they get their fidgety little hands on it. The depth created for these characters is contrived just to reel in the kids. But the acting is just unacceptable--even for such a large scale movie.
Will Smith isn't in this one. Don't even bother expecting him to make a surprise appearance. You may think, "He's too integral to the enjoyment of the first film not to be in this one." And you'd be right. It's like Chris Tucker not being in Next Friday.
Luckily, Judd Hirsch and Jeff Goldblum reprise their roles.
Hirsch brings some much needed life to this film. His storyline is the least important, but the most engaging out of the whole thing.
The film's faults fortunately give it a really corny '90s feel, which, at the very least, makes this film fun. And the momentum builds well, so we can actually enjoy ourselves.
The individual pieces in this film shouldn't make up an impressive project. But somehow, the small instances of light shine through and are just good enough to make this movie watchable. But ultimately, this film shouldn't depend on a few scenes by two actors to make it so.
Twizard Rating: 74
Roland Emmerich has his hands all over this film--which isn't a bad thing. Up until July of 1996, the best special effects we'd seen were still from Jurassic Park. But Independence Day came out one year before Titanic, so it held the title that whole time.
And for good reason. It's so visually stunning that 20 years later, we're still in awe of what we're looking at. It sure helps make this film feel less dated.
Less dated. 20 years is long enough that we can say that, right?
Unfortunately, the schmaltzy dialogue doesn't help its case. It may seem that most of the cast can't act, but that's just a result of a marginal script (besides Vivica A. Fox, who, in fact, can't act).
Taking place around the fourth of July, a worldwide alien invasion is imminent, and the country is in a true panic. Amidst the many eventually-connecting subplots, the film concerns itself most with that of pilot Steve Hiller (Will Smith) and computer-wiz David Levinson (Jeff Goldblum). Both carry the film well and help provide levity to lighten an otherwise dry-by-today's-standards action movie.
Judd Hirsch plays Goldblum's father and has some truly brilliant scenes. Harry Connick Jr. and Randy Quaid give us a little something as well.
All of these attributes allow this film to hold up well. And it's even more impressive despite its several pitfalls. It's a true product of the '90s, and even where it seems dated, it's just enough to make us nostalgic.
Watching ID4 again reminds us how amazing Will Smith's whole underachiever schtick is, making us want it back again. Hopefully he'll step away from his Oscar-worthy performances and give us a well-deserved comedy one of these days.
Twizard Rating: 93
Will Smith can carry a movie as well as anyone in Hollywood, and he's been doing it for about the last 20 years. In Concussion he plays Dr. Bennet Omalu, a Nigerian pathologist working in Pittsburgh, who notices something he's never seen before when conducting an autopsy on former NFL player Mike Webster. It turns out that it's a new brain condition that causes its victim to enter a deep depression. He names it chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE.
Smith does an amazing job as Omalu. He doesn't use his lilt robotically, but commits to every inflection along the way, providing a very natural delivery that makes us believe he is Nigerian.
The filmmakers may not take a lot of risks with Smith's character, pinning him as the interminable hero--which he undeniably is. But I think many people would have wanted to visit his weaknesses a little bit more, other than the first 15 minutes when it is merely stated that he has no human relationships. This gets taken care of fairly quickly with the introduction of Prema, played by Gugu Mbatha-Raw, a Kenyan nurse who needs a place to live and develops a relationship with Omalu.
Even though Smith's character doesn't face a whole lot of moral dilemma, he is so earnest that he becomes honorable--a personage to cherish in cinema. Smith brings his own personality to the film, and although he's fully committed, you are comforted knowing that it's him donning those grey sideburns.
There are a plethora of self-aware dialogue that may rub people the wrong way, but it's paced very very well so as to not discount the script. With all the science that the story surrounds, it never makes itself confusing or convoluted by over-explaining the details.
Not that I was already fond of the NFL organization, but watching this movie makes me dislike them even more. I know the film tries to be unbiased at times, but the facts are all there pointing the other way.
But Concussion is about more than just football. It's about the misconception of the American dream. The realization that that dream is rooted in monetary gain by any means necessary. And as Omalu discovers it, we do too. An organization that our society is loyally infatuated with isn't all that we romanticize it to be.
Driven by Peter Landesman's honest direction and a score composed by James Newton Howard, which helps drive the intensity of the film, Concussion is one of my favorite films of the year. It isn't perfect, but it's very good. And more than anything, it's powerful--which, in this case, may be the most important factor of all.
Twizard Rating: 94
With what seems like two films in one, Focus has our attention the
whole time. However, it makes us forget that the big picture is not what
it seems to be. More or less it’s a love story between Nicky (Will
Smith) and Jess (Margot Robbie). We are given a lot of scenes that make
it seem like this is about a big heist, but those turn out to be just
instruments to help paint a bigger picture.
While Smith adds another fun performance to his CV, Robbie is always
letting us know that she’s about to con someone before we’re supposed to
find out. It’s in her face. But on the other hand, she’s capable of
acting fooled when her character really is.
The script could have been proofread once more to fix a few minor,
yet mostly unnoticeable errors. But Focus offers an interesting glimpse
inside a world that our culture is obsessed with. And the twists are
mostly unexpected. You’re not sure who’s going to screw who until the
end. It’s tortuous but never confusing.
Although the film lacks a lot of depth and character development, you
still root for the leads. That must be the magic of Will Smith.
Twizard Rating: 84
