Tenet: Blu Ray Review

Christopher Nolan's high-concept action-filled Tenet is a blockbuster to see on the big screen.

That's not an exhortation given worries over Covid-19, social distancing and movie releases - more that the film's been primarily made for the big screen experience, and certainly for the IMAX screen with extended action sequences filling every inch of what is on offer.

Nolan's been sparse with details of the plot, but Washington plays an unnamed CIA agent who is called upon to stop a Russian oligarch Andrei Sator (played with devilishly dead eyes by Kenneth Branagh) from ending the world. 

So far, so run-of-the-mill spy thriller.

But Nolan then peppers the script with talk of entropy, backwards-moving bullets and time-shifting scenes and further muddies the water with a never-ending series of set pieces that each try to outdo each other with visuals and action.

The thing is with Tenet is that it's muddled in exposition serving as a bridge in between each action sequence.

Early on, one character says to John David Washington's The Protagonist "Don't try and understand it."

To be frank, it's a missive from Nolan that could also apply to the audience as the movie spools out.

On an emotional level, Tenet is less interested in providing something to grab onto. Whereas Elizabeth Debicki's gangster moll Kat appears to exist purely to service an abused wife storyline, there are hints of attraction between The Protagonist and her, but they exist only in passing.

More effective is the relationship between the Protagonist and Robert Pattinson's initially mysterious Neil. Pattinson delights in delivering one of the strongest performances he's mustered in a while, slipping into the intrigue and action with ease. Washington and he gel well, whereas solo, Washington's Protagonist is left to spout reams of exposition and supposition of what lies ahead. It's in the verbiage that Tenet gains its pomposity.

But at the end of the day, Tenet is all about the action.

Nolan delivers overly choreographed sequences of utter jaw-dropping consequence that are heavily scored by a bombastic and edge-of-the-seat score. An opening sequence inside a concert hall sets the tense atmosphere in motion, and the film very rarely lets up from then on.

It's here that Tenet more than delivers, shifting its pieces around the cinematic table with masterful ease - it's easy to understand why Nolan refused to compromise on his delivery of Tenet into the multiplex and it's easy to let the action wash over you.

There are hints at the end of a potential sequel, but it's hard to see how Nolan could top himself in terms of visual thrills and action sequences.

There's no doubt Tenet is a spectacle, and an at times extremely entertaining one. Just don't scratch below the surface, because emotionally Tenet is lacking. And while that may not be a key factor for those seeking out blockbuster entertainment, for all of its top notch bells and whistles, it does have you leaving the cinema feeling a touch confused and wondering if that was it.

Unhinged: Blu Ray Review

Unhinged is peak 2020, a grubby would-be B movie of a sustained campaign of terror against a woman.

A heavy set Russell Crowe is The Man, a man so far over the edge he's committed double murder and arson before the five minute mark of the film's even hit. Caren Pistorius is Rachel, a woman on the precipice, after waking up late, a messy divorce and a school run all collide.

When Rachel repeatedly beeps her horn at The Man at a junction, her day gets immeasurably worse when he takes affront, and starts pursuing her and her loved ones in a vendetta of road-rage induced revenge.

Unhinged really is the kind of low rent film that would have made it straight to DVD back in the 80s.

Shorn of any real background other than cursory exposition from the cops, Crowe needs do nothing more than look menacing and threatening throughout. And to be fair, when he fixes the screen with a dead-eyed stare, the threat levels reach a crescendo.

But Unhinged requires nothing more of any of its actors.

Certainly the script, loaded as it is with coincidence and nothing more, treats all those involved at the dumbest level possible, with Rachel's character behaving improbably and The Man's escalating rage attracting no attention anywhere else other than inside Rachel's world.

Perhaps that's the most frightening thing about Unhinged - that it gives oxygen to such brutal treatment of a woman and the women in its film. Beaten, stabbed, terrorised - the majority of the victims are female, and the camera appears to relish the horrors visited down on them.

Coupled with clumsy dialogue, and the buzzwording of things like "Fortnite scenario" that are thrown in purely to appeal to the kidz, Unhinged makes no case for subtlety or smarts. Repeated shots of objects show they will become important in just a few frames' time and leave no room for doubt within the script.

But Unhinged's worst crime is how it uses its victim. Even in the final frames, she's robbed of any power or sense of victory in the story, and it's shocking to say the least. The loss of agency and the fact she will forever be a victim is a morally reprehensible message, no matter how dumb the rest of the film is.

Ultimately, Unhinged is a film that deserves to be forgotten - the predictable formulaic action lacks any real redeeming points, and its long term message is enough to leave you needing a shower after you've experienced it.

The Dry: Film Review

Cast: Eric Bana, Genevieve O'Reilly, Keir O'Donnell

Director: Robert Connolly

The sense of oppressive heat is all over Robert Connolly's big screen adaptation of the number one best selling Australian book by Jane Harper.

From the opening shots of a gunshot-blasted body and blood-splattered walls with baby howling in the background to cracked ground that hasn't seen rain for over 350 days, Connolly's The Dry is a gripping thriller that builds on its sense of mystery as it progresses.

When Eric Bana's Aaron Falk returns to his hometown of Kiewarra after the apparent murder suicide of friend Luke Hadler and his family, he finds old wounds reopened after he's asked to look into the case by family. Shocked into returning by a note that says he lied and Luke lied, Falk rediscovers a mystery and secret from his past that he'd thought was long dormant.

There's an appealing grittiness to Connolly's adaptation of the book, even if the final moments see fit to drop a large amount of exposition to answer the mysteries posed throughout.

Essentially an examination of small-town prejudice and the pent-up rage of an angry community tarred by its past, Connolly keeps the helm of the film intimate yet just about wide enough to give a feeling that anyone could have done the crime then, and anyone could have done it now.

In amongst all this is a smoothly suave and calm Bana who plays Falk as a cool and collected character, who's clearly haunted by the past, and troubled by the present. There's little to no showy moments in the softly spoken turn that ensures you're along for the journey as much as Aaron is.  Bana is as good a guide as you'd need for the mystery and while the end challenges credulity due to its excessive info dump after a slow burn, he does more than enough to propel you along.

While there are one too many flashbacks that prove to be better for a book narrative than a big screen one, the diversions just about manage to serve the heightening of the tension and the growth of the mystery, thanks to a younger cast and the palpable sense of a bond from youth.

Ultimately, The Dry's drama and its central mystery are more than enough to keep you engaged over its 2 hour run time - but thanks to a more than affable Bana, who's rarely been better in the steely intensity stakes, this dry is likely to leave you thirsting for more.

Wonder Woman 84: Film Review

Cast: Gal Gadot, Pedro Pascal, Chris Pine, Kristen Wiig, Natasha Rothwell
Director: Patty Jenkins

Be careful what you wish for seems like both a good maxim for this film - and also ironically about it too.

After what seems an eternity thanks to the cinematic ravaging by Covid-19 to the release schedule, Patty Jenkins' Wonder Woman 84 finally arrives on the big screen.

And it's a wonderfully uncynical piece that's clearly more about uplifting spirits than providing something deep and aimed at moving the DC world forward.

In 1984, Gal Gadot's Diana Prince is working at the Smithsonian Museum, but still stuck in the past pining for the love of her life Steve Trevor. Into her world comes the klutzy Barbara Minerva (Wiig, who seriously impresses with the mix of drama and comedy before the usual superhero blur sets in) and also Pedro Pascal's apparent televangelist Maxwell Lord who promises that what you want can come true if you believe.

But as with everything, it all comes at a price...

Wonder Woman 84 opens with a sequence of wonder as a young Amazonian Diana takes on a challenge, and ends up with a scene that feels like Love Actually crossed onto its set and was responsible for a reshoot to add something in for the festive season.

In between all of this is a mixed pot of both good, and bad. 

From Patty Jenkins' unfussy action sequences that unfold with ease and clarity (bar one final showdown) to a heart that beats loudly in scenes with Pine and Gadot that ripple with chemistry (especially in a scene with a plane in fireworks), there's much that will keep the casual DC fan happy. From the wonder and joy of Pine's comedy chops as he wonders at his out-of-time second life, to Barbara Minerva's gradual opening up, the film has its sense of purpose and mission statement high on its own agenda.

And yet, it also falters into an unusual mix of a film that's not quite sure it has what it takes to break out from the mold of the genre. From Pedro Pascal's hamminess as the ghoul of greed who really has nothing much to do to the 150 minutes oddly feeling like it's padded out via way of a MacGuffin that's barely anything, there's a distinct feeling of indifference that settles into the second act of the movie that's hard to shake. Central to some of that is Gadot, who never clearly seems to deliver lines, and exists mainly to assume the mantle of a model shot in slow mo for various action moments.

In among the kitsch opening, and the 80s nostalgia, it's easy to see why Wonder Woman 84 would have been a surefire thing - there's a comfort to the film's central messages and it would take a hard heart to not give in to the feelings of loss early on, the feeling of wonder in the opening scenes and the take on female friendship.

But this throwback film doesn't quite hit all the right beats, and Wonder Woman 84 is frankly, less of a wonder this time around, more a feeling of the formulaic and rote. It has moments of joy, but the pleasures feel more fleeting and the earnest heart which made so much of the 2017 film and its story arc beat with a vibrant life is noticeably missing.

The New Mutants: Blu Ray Review

The idea of the X-Men franchise getting a dose of horror is, in theory, a great one.

But what director Josh "The Fault In Our Stars" Boone delivers is something that fails to build on the potential, frustratingly drawing a veil over 20th Century Fox's involvement in the X-Men franchise.

The story, such as it is, centres around Blu Hunt's Danielle Moonstar, a native American who is the sole survivor of a tornado which destroys her reservation. Awaking having seen her father killed, Dani finds herself chained to a gurney inside a hospital with the soothing voice of Dr Reyes (Braga) telling her everything will be alright, as long as she just accepts the treatment.

Introduced to four other teenagers within the hospital, Dani soon believes they are being trained to be part of the X-Men. But when the group starts to be attacked, they find their loyalties questioned, and their grip on what is the truth crumbling....

The New Mutants never really gets going.

Despite a cast that has charisma in other roles, flat dialogue and limp direction hinders them from being truly memorable.

Add in to that mix, some truly ropey CGI and this X-Men spinoff never finds any of the feet it needed to launch a trilogy. Rough editing, and some uninspired visual choices stop The New Mutants from soaring when it should.

The asylum setting is a nice antithesis to the pristine brilliance of Professor Charles Xavier's school of mutants - and the oppressive claustrophobic nature of what's within should provide the film with the atmosphere it needs, but in truth, the film's script doesn't capitalise on years of prior X-Men films, nor does it show any of its own strengths.

Scenes from Buffy The Vampire Slayer play in the background right before the film practically rips off the moments on the big screen, hints of child abuse and same-sex relationships are danced around to hold off any darkness and the movie never really gains the wisdom of its own merits to soar.

Williams delivers a performance that seems to be another version of her character from (the more superior) schoolgirl murder mystery The Falling; Taylor-Joy appears to be channeling Jennifer Lawrence's Russian Red Sparrow via way of Villanelle and Heaton is playing a kind of Johnny Knoxville-mutant-hick hybrid.

Instead of revelling in the creepy, The New Mutants rolls in the familiar and by being left rotting on a release shelf for 3 years, it really shows that it's out of step and time for what it should be.

Massively frustrating, given the chance to reinvigorate the tired and stale X-Men universe, The New Mutants will fall easily into a category of what should and could have been, rather than what is. 

Shirley: DVD Review

Released by Madman Home Ent

Cast: Elisabeth Moss, Logan Lerman, Odessa Young, Michael Stuhlbarg

Director: Josephine Decker

Feeling like a woozy Gothic psychological romance rather than a detailed relationship drama, Josephine Decker's Shirley sees The Handmaid's Tale's Elisabeth Moss as writer Shirley Jackson (who went on to pen The Haunting of Hill House).

Unable to find her muse, agoraphobic and constantly in bed, drink or cigarette in hand, Shirley's hit a stumbling block. Into her life, at the behest of her professor partner (Stuhlbarg, in a vaguely monstrous role), comes youngsters Rose and her academic husband Fred (Young and Lerman) to help out around the house and at the college.

But Shirley is reticent to have them around, and Fred becomes frustrated at his lack of progression at the college. However, the more Shirley and Fred dig in, the more Rose awakens from her repression.

Shirley isn't a bad character study by any stretch of the imagination.

Thanks to Moss' wild-eyed approach to Jackson, the film thrives when she's on screen - and it positively sparks when she's paired up with Young as the two crackle against each other and against years of repression and expectation.

Hand-held camerawork, close ups, and a haunting OST along with a mystery of a missing girl all make for an intoxicating mix in Shirley, and Young and Moss deserve kudos for their time on screen.

Moss in particular revels in her character's messiness, and the script doesn't hold back from showing her flaws, but equally, it doesn't criticise her for them either.

A fascinating study of genius and an arthouse approach by Decker give the film the sheen it needs - and offers the audience a different way at looking at tortured authors.

The Mystery of D.B Cooper: Film Review

Director: John Dower

To the uninitiated, the legend of DB Cooper may sound preposterous.

A man in a suit who in 1971 hijacked a plane, demanded $200,000, four parachutes and then jumped out of the back stairs of the craft into a destiny unknown - it's practically got mythic status written all over it.

Cooper was responsible for large scale aviation change and implementation of security protocols, but even more than that - he was responsible for a myth lasted since November 1971, given he was never found.

It's into this that John Dower's genial documentary dives headfirst as he gets wrapped up in the only unsolved airplane hijacking in America - and the fact everyone involved in the case has had a "I'm Spartacus" moment when asked if they know who he was.

It's this obsession which fuels the majority of this handsomely shot patchwork recreation doco as Dower delves into the mystery, essentially re-telling it and never providing a Eureka moment as it draws to a close.

From interviewer interjections to candid confessions from those involved that they've spent way too much of their lives obsessing about what happened to Cooper rather than living, Dower throws up a prism to the case, and delivers a film that's completely about the exaggerations of the story and of the points of view of many.

From flight attendants caught up in the moment, to pilots in the cockpit, through to journalists intrigued by the tale, Dower threads a multi-layered webbing of a story that's compelling to watch, but ultimately forgettable after it's finished.

It's about the belief in the mystery and Dower does a fine job of amassing all those edges into something that's nicely entertaining fluff for the conspiracy masses all packaged up in one 90 minute serving.