My weekly movie reviews. You can also read these on letterboxd.
This week focuses on four films from 2024 as I catch up on this year’s releases.
CARRY-ON (2024)
Rating: 3 out of 5 Stars
Spoiler Alert if you haven’t seen CARRY-ON yet.
There’s a lot to like about the new Christmas-set thriller CARRY-ON: leading man Taron Egerton who has an every-man quality more than most movie stars and keeps getting better than ever, a cold and calculated Jason Bateman who proves he can play a villain as well as anyone else, and an intense pace that won’t let up once it gets going. I wanted to love it for these reasons but story issues spoil what could have been a DIE HARD-level great thriller, making it only good enough.
The first twenty minutes has some minor problems. First, Taron has to talk to himself quite a bit while sitting less than ten feet from his co-worker. The filmmakers foolishly fail to establish how loud the security checkpoint could be which might make this believable. Instead, they just expect us to suspend disbelief, something I granted them as I gave the movie some grace early on. In the middle of the picture, we get completely sucked into that intense tone I mentioned early on. It’s a great cat-and-mouse chase watching Taron try to outsmart Jason and continue to be caught over and over again. I saw it coming but a twist involving Logan Marshall-Green’s character is also quite clever and the ensuing one-take car accident fight is quite a thrill, though it’s packed with far too much CGI…
It’s in the last twenty-five minutes that CARRY-ON comes apart. It starts to unravel as soon as Sofia Carson (the cast’s weakest link) is running down the airport drop-off lanes for no good reason while being chased by the bad guy van, randomly runs into her boyfriend at the right time, and is almost killed by said bad dude but just before that happens a helpless victim makes a perfect shot with a sniper rifle and saves the day. From there, our hero decides he has the most absurd solution to everyone dying, one that involves a police detective placing all of her trust in him after their sole interaction which involved him tricking her and hitting her on the head (that kind of trust relationship worked in DIE HARD because it was well-established, it’s not here). The hero solution takes the movie into a cartoonish action finale but before that happens the script gets muddled with a dumb, unnecessarily complex conspiracy. Suddenly, the above-mentioned detective solves the puzzle in ten seconds, putting together all the pieces about independent contractors staging a terrorist act and making it look like the Russians or other foreign baddies so their pay days increase. Uh huh. First off, why would smart ex-military contractors take such a chance on something that isn’t definite, something as unpredictable as which way the government/political landscape is going to swing based on one disaster. Dumb idea. Furthermore, the movie didn’t need any further explanation of Bateman and co’s motives. When told that they were indifferent, non-idealogical agents-for-hire planting a bomb for money, that totally sufficed for me. In fact, it was refreshing to have no-nonsense baddies without an agenda other than making a lot of bucks. Then the movie has to add all this extra political layer when all we want to do is watch Taron Egerton run more.
I don’t know why filmmakers keep doing this thing where they over-complicated the plot… REBEL RIDGE was guilty of the same sin. Do they watch classic action films? They’re simple. They rely almost entirely on character, character interaction, and placing those characters in dangerous situations. That’s it. But now, filmmakers feel the need to weave these hard-to-follow, intricate (and almost always silly) plots into otherwise perfectly basic thrillers.
It’s a shame. It’s a damn shame.
Watched on Netflix.
THE CONVERT (2024)
Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars
This film has been on my radar since I read the festival reviews and I’m glad I caught up with it before the end of the year. A return to form for Lee Tamahori, who did some interesting films in the 90s (THE EDGE, MULHOLLAND FALLS) and then got lost in Hollywood crap for more than a decade, THE CONVERT is a handsome and thought-provoking period piece.
It would be worth watching for the locations and attention to historical detail alone. The landscapes and sets are stunning, the costumes and weapons fascinating to observe. Thankfully, there’s more to THE CONVERT than period piece eye candy. Guy Pearce gives another great performance. In a right-minded film industry, he would be nominated for an Oscar for his work here but subtle, complex roles like this are rarely regarded by the intelligentsia. He’s surrounded by other strong actors, especially the Māori cast who shine with authenticity and sincerity.
But what stands out to me most about this movie are its ideas. On the surface, THE CONVERT is similar to another missionary movie I just re-watched, THE MISSION (which I love), in that it focuses on a reformed violent man who ministered to an indigenous group and is forced to consider a return to violence. In many ways, Tamahori’s film is more complex than Joffe’s; he presents competing ideas of peace and war and leaves us with a feeling that the answer might lean in the more controversial direction. The title plays in an ironic way, one that has left me thinking about the film and what it says about the nature of man since my viewing a few nights ago.
There is one thing I strongly dislike about THE CONVERT and that’s the use of CGI blood. The action is otherwise thrilling but the bizarre use of so much VFX red squirts ruins it. Why? Doing it the practical way is not difficult and it looks a million times better. Especially for an “indie” film like this, it was a huge mistake to go that direction and spoils what would be otherwise fantastic battle sequences.
Regardless of that flaw, THE CONVERT is definitely one of the must watch films of 2024.
Watched on Hulu
LIMBO (2024)
Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars
One of the few films that gets neo-noir right. Other than the high contrast B&W cinematography, LIMBO doesn’t mimic the style of 40s/50s Film Noir. It also doesn’t attempt to over-intellectualize or stand above the genre. This Australian detective film is quite simple: a detective re-investigating an old disappearance case with a handful of suspects and witnesses. The narrative is impressively bare: it’s just a series of conversation scenes one after another as the policeman visits one person, the next, then goes back to talk to the first, and so on. That’s it. And it works incredibly well because the director focuses all his attention on what actually makes the best Noir work well: rich characters. There’s no BIG SLEEP-style plot here to unravel. There’s no web of clues, just a web of emotions and buried hurt for the detective to get through.
He is played by Simon Baker, re-inventing himself with this role. He looks fantastic: wrinkled, rough, run down. He commands the screen with silence, barely moving his face, communicating completely through the wide lenses of his glasses which he rarely takes off. It’s truly a great performance, one that should get more attention and a lesson for all screen actors.
Ivan Sen is now on my list of filmmakers to follow and I’ll have to take time to watch his previous work.
Watched on Amazon
OUT OF DARKNESS (2024)
Rating: 3 out of 5 Stars
The locations and cinematography of OUT OF DARKNESS are its strong suits but the promise of this Paleolithic thriller, teasing us with the possibility of a new QUEST FOR FIRE, ultimately disappoints.
Whether it’s the writing, casting, or direction, the ensemble of characters are not distinct or memorable. I didn’t gravitate towards any of them like the band of fighters/survivors in ALIENS or PREDATOR. Therefore, their deaths mean very little and seem to just go by, one by one. The casting overall feels too modern to me, probably an intentional choice but a misguided one. This film needed the Ron Pearlman types. Little things don’t help either like their costumes which feel way too put together instead of primitive, almost manufactured. This is a distracting element and doesn’t help immerse the viewer into the world.
The film redeems itself with a tense, final 25 minutes that is only spoiled by some VFX blood. Why not go practical after several well-done special FX MU shots through the film? Otherwise, the finish is the film’s best moment and does leave the audience with something to think about.
Watched on Amazon
