Thor: Love and Thunder (2022, Taika Waititi)

Thor: Love and Thunder ends like all Thor movies, promising the next one will—finally—deliver on the promise. The first movie follow-up fumbled when co-star Natalie Portman didn’t rate an Avengers 1 gig, the second movie when Portman didn’t rate an Avengers 2 gig, the third movie had Avengers 3 entirely upend it (with Portman not bothering coming back). Well, she’s back for Love and Thunder and given how she’s got such a lousy arc, it won’t be a surprise if she’s gone for good this time.

Of course, they didn’t stop messing with Chris Hemsworth’s character arc—which now apparently wraps back around to the first movie, only not really—with the latest Avengers. The most recent one sent Hemsworth off with The Guardians of the Galaxy, who barely show up in Love and Thunder. Chris Pratt gets the most lines, but the others seem like they showed up for a couple hours, plus and minus the makeup chair. They’re just around long enough for Hemsworth to head back to Earth, having found himself between Avengers 4 and this one.

Only not really, because when he gets back to Earth, he discovers Portman has the power of Thor. She’s been superheroing it up on Earth; only we don’t see any of it. Once Hemsworth’s back in the movie, Portman’s downgraded to a girlfriend part. Worse, she’s demoted to an ex-girlfriend whose emotional experience isn’t part of the story. And their reuniting arc is all about them getting back together.

Shame she’s only Thor because Hemsworth made his old hammer promise to look after her, which includes after it got broken in Thor 3 and Portman ingloriously got cancer at the beginning of this movie. It’s got to be really hard on the character, whose single bit of character development—besides Kat Dennings coming back for a cameo—is flashbacks to the character’s mom dying of cancer. It doesn’t even rise to middling soap opera; Love and Thunder could give a shit about Portman.

To be entirely fair, it’s unclear what Love and Thunder does give a shit about. Special guest star villain Christian Bale, who starts the movie in an apparent homage to the beginning of Star Trek V, which is a flex, is potentially compelling, but once the film spends any time with him, it’s clear he’s… just as dangerous as Josh Brolin in the Avengers movies. So, why doesn’t Bale get a fourteen-movie arc or whatever.

The film’s very wishy-washy on the Marvel movies’ gods—with Russell Crowe showing up for a Zeus cameo (leading to the film’s most successful moment, as long as you stick around long enough)—but they don’t do jack shit for their worshippers. They like it that way just fine, thank you very much. Bale’s mad his daughter died in a desert while his god had an oasis nearby and didn’t intercede.

Conveniently, Bale then finds the power to kill all the gods in the universe, pretty quickly going after Tessa Thompson and the Asgardians living on Earth. Specifically their children. He kidnaps their children and puts them in a spider cage on an asteroid in a black and white universe.

Kieron L. Dyer plays the lead kid, son of now-dead Idris Elba, who can communicate across the universe with Hemsworth. Given where Love and Thunder ends up, there ought to be an arc for Dyer and Hemsworth. There’s not. There’s barely an arc for Hemsworth and Portman.

Actually, given the end of the movie, it seems like Dyer could’ve been the film’s protagonist or at least jockeying for the spot. He doesn’t. Despite Love and Thunder having a Guns N’ Roses-heavy soundtrack and Dyer being a new, enthusiastic Guns N’ Roses fan, the two things are unconnected.

Director Waititi narrates the film in his role as Hemsworth’s CGI sidekick. The film’s more successful in summary than in scene, which isn’t great.

There are some iffy effects throughout—Waititi’s got these vaguely boring intergalactic settings (not sure who thought black and white universe was the way to go with an outer space fight)—but the finale’s got some fantastic visualizing of a tough Marvel Comics character to visualize realistically.

They get away with it, on Portman and Bale’s professional competency and Hemsworth’s easy charm. And the setup for next time is beyond cloying and trendy; they’ll finally do a great one. Promise.

Doctor Who (2005) s13e08 – Legend of the Sea Devils

Legend of the Sea Devils is incredibly genial. As Jodie Whittaker's penultimate "Doctor Who" outing, it's terribly disappointing, but Whittaker's entire run has been disappointing. It's far from her fault; rather, it's showrunner Chris Chibnall (who also co-wrote this special) being exceptionally milquetoast. But this special is a look at how blandly acceptable Whittaker's recent season could've been; they did a six-part series instead of individual episodes, meaning new companion John Bishop never could get situated.

He's situated here and fine. Bishop tries very hard in his scenes with Whittaker and other companion, Mandip Gill. But he also seems to know they're the regulars, and he's still the new guy. They've got a plot together, though, whereas Bishop's just their pal. This episode addresses Gill's recently revealed romantic interest in Whittaker, which is a "Who" no-no. No time for love. Though two of the five Doctors in this revival series have had significant romance or ostensible romance arcs, and now they're shoehorning it in for Whittaker at the very end.

It's a middling resolution; sincere enough it'd be nice to see Whittaker and Gill in something else together, breezy enough it doesn't slow things down. There are no other subplots in the episode which has the TARDIS going off course and landing in 1807 China, where the Sea Devils are attacking humans. The episode doesn't give the full details, but Whittaker has had dealings with them in the past. Well, the future, sort of. The Sea Devils are from the early seventies "Doctor Who," making the lousy costumes a little better. Obviously, it doesn't make the outfits look any better; it just means there's an excuse for them looking like… lousy seventies alien costumes.

Whittaker and Gill have to go the past to find a treasure while Bishop befriends a recent orphan (Marlowe Chan-Reeves) as they get in trouble with pirate Crystal Yu. It's fine. It'd be a completely solid, albeit uninspired regular episode. As a special—as Whittaker's penultimate "Who"—it's maybe wanting, but only because it's too little too late for the new team.

The special effects are sometimes wonky; the CGI background skies are terrible for whatever reason. Maybe it's intentional, like the alien costumes. There's also seemingly a Goonies visual reference, which is cute, and the other special effects aren't bad. Though the swashbuckling sword-fighting is wanting. Director Wang does much better with the emotional stuff than the action while not doing particularly well with any of it. Not bad, though. Just… not good.

Sea Devils feels like a contractual obligation, which just makes it remind how Whittaker never really had a chance with Chibnall driving the boat.

The Matrix Resurrections (2021, Lana Wachowski)

The Matrix Resurrections opens with a "cover" of the opening of the original Matrix movie. It takes a while before it makes sense in the narrative, but basically, new cast members Jessica Henwick and Toby Onwumere are watching the scene where Carrie-Anne Moss escapes from Hugo Weaving. Only it's not Carrie-Anne Moss or Hugo Weaving; it's some kind of modeling software. Someone's trying to train a program, and that program, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, is becoming aware of it, leading to him and Henwick teaming up even though she's a human living outside the Matrix, and he's a program living inside it.

It gets really confusing for a while—especially when they end up in Keanu Reeves's apartment from the first movie—before the film's done with it and just cuts to Reeves in the modern-day. He's a world-famous video game developer—didn't you play his award-winning series, The Matrix Trilogy—and he's kind of a sad old man. His business partner, Jonathan Groff, knows how to motivate Reeves to good result, but they're not really friends. The only friend Reeves has got is a young incel-y sycophant, Andrew Lewis Caldwell, and most of Reeves's personal time is spent mooning over the cute lady in his coffee shop. She just happens to remind him of Carrie-Anne Moss from The Matrix (because it's Carrie-Anne Moss). Oh, and going to his therapy sessions with shrink Neil Patrick Harris. See, once upon a time, Reeves had a nervous breakdown, thinking he was living in a simulation and had to break free of it. Good thing he channeled that energy into making the game series.

Resurrections has a very long first act, leading to a very long second act. Once the action gets underway towards the end, it's a race to see if the good guys can succeed and whether or not director and co-writer Wachowski can make the sequel work. Whenever the film has a chance to comment on the previous movies or lean into sentimentality, it's going to do it. Resurrections isn't quite an apology tour for Matrix 2 and 3, but it learns from all the mistakes and seems to promise it's not going to make them again. Wachowski even goes back to fix some of the misses in the first film, drawing attention to what they'd overlooked and how she can fix it. Resurrections is a supremely confident sequel; it's hard to believe no one had it in mind at the time.

Though I guess the only way to really guess at one of the callbacks would be to racially profile, so probably better there aren't more breadcrumbs.

The film's got three inciting incidents, starting with Henwick and Abdul-Mateen becoming pals, then Caldwell embarrassing Reeves in front of Moss. Finally, Groff announcing their shitty parent company, Warner Bros., is making a Matrix 4 game whether Reeves wants to make one or not. The last one's a bit of a MacGuffin, just something to allow for some jokes, exposition, and hints at character development for Reeves. Resurrections will eventually put on its blockbuster hat, and Wachowski will embrace the sequel-ness; that sequence with Reeves muddling through his mundane, disappointing reality is probably Wachowski's best work in the film. She finds this sadness in Reeves's impotence. Therapist-prescribed impotence in the form of a blue pill.

He'll eventually get his mojo back and find himself in a very unexpected world, one with a much different story than anyone expected. He'll make new friends and find old friends—sometimes literally making new friends out of old friends—and try to figure out what he can do in the world with his eyes open.

And whether or not he wants to do it by himself or try—against all odds—to convince Moss there's something more to them than coffee shop missed connection chemistry.

Reeves is pretty good in the lead. He doesn't ever get any heavy lifting, with Wachowski relying on imagery from the previous movies for some salient character development moments. The movie footage is apparently footage from his video games in Resurrections, making the film's least believable detail a world where a live-action cutscene video game was mega-popular and aged well. To the point soccer mom Moss can sit around and casually play them, seeing herself in films and having the dudes around her laugh at her for thinking she was ever so badass. In the first half, before the sci-fi action kicks off, there's a particularly great scene where Reeves and Moss hash out the lives dealt them. Again, the non-sci-fi action parts of the film are Wachowski's best. She can't keep it going forever, but it sometimes seems like she can, and Resurrections will really just be sad Reeves working at a software company.

But it's not. It's going to get into the mythology of the originals, bringing back Jada Pinkett Smith (who's much better in a combination of old-age makeup and CGI than she ever was in the original trilogy) to bridge Henwick and Reeves's worlds. Henwick's great. She doesn't get much to do in the third act because the focus's changed, but she's great.

Also back in a sort of cameo is Lambert Wilson, who'd make the movie if it weren't so good, as he manages to deconstruct the problems with the original trilogy as well as modern media. He mumbles a lot, and it's interspersed with French because he's still a poseur; I don't think he says anything about movies shouldn't be watched on smartphones, but you know he thinks it. There are a handful of purely joyous moments in Matrix Resurrections and Wilson's one of them. The movie's not sure how serious it wants to be—it acknowledges it raises many questions, but they're usually deftly introduced, and there's this tacit agreement—too many answered questions just lead to the last Matrix sequels, and no one wants those happening again.

Groff's fantastic, an agent of exuberant chaos. He's one of the Matrix 2 and 3 mea culpas.

Moss is good. She's got to do a lot in a limited amount of screen time. She manages, though losing her time to Harris (who really, really likes getting into Reeves's business) in the second half… unfortunately mirroring the original film and how it is lost track of her. It's different this time, which is what Wachowski's saying over and over. She's figured out how to make a Matrix sequel and make it well. Just took two bad sequels and almost twenty years.

Though the maturity helps Reeves.

Harris is fine. In a film of exuberance, he's muted.

Oh, and Abdul-Mateen's a combination red herring and gimmick. He's got presence, he's got purpose, but he's got no story. Not like literally everyone else. Including Thelma Hopkins in what might be the most fabulous cameo of all time.

Technically, it's good. Wachowski's direction is mostly excellent; again, the first half is better than the second, partially because the second seems to be done at a higher frame rate (for IMAX?), making the action rote. Along with Daniele Massaccesi and John Toll's kind of rote photography. Resurrections never wows, which is another joke—the idea a Matrix movie needs to be Matrix 2: Bullet-Timeyer. Whenever there are effects sequences, which look great, it's always from the characters' perspectives. It's about the people, not the bang-bang.

Good editing from Joseph Jett Sally. Wanting music from Johnny Klimek and Tom Tykwer. I kept waiting for the music to go off, and it never does. Outstanding production design by Hugh Bateup and Peter Walpole. And then Lindsay Pugh's costume design is fantastic. Another place where the film learned from its less artistically successful predecessors.

Matrix Resurrections is an intentionally, earnestly rousing success. Who knew you should wait until you want to see a Matrix sequel to make a Matrix sequel. What a concept. And very lucky it was such a good Matrix movie Wachowski wanted to see.

The Matrix Revolutions (2003, The Wachowskis)

I understand there are reasons for The Matrix Revolutions. If that one rumor is true, it’s basically Keanu Reeves didn’t want to do sequels forever, and the Wachowskis wanted to do a long-running franchise. Old Internet gossip (oddly more reliably than some later Internet gossip, but still… Internet gossip). And then the costume changes… the Columbine shooting didn’t help with trench coats as a fashion statement. Oh, and then instead of the movies being all about freeing people trapped in their Matrix lives—so if you’re a cop, you’re working for the machine, and the good guys will have to take you out—that action kills a real person. Who, if they were a good person who took the red pill, wouldn’t be a cop. But it’s a person. It’s after 9/11. Cheering killing mindless human-faced zombies… not so easy.

So you make them all programs like TRON. Only they’re sometimes super horny and sweaty.

I get it.

Also, Gloria Foster dying and having to be replaced between the last movie and this movie, even though Revolutions takes place immediately following the last one, Reloaded. I grok it.

It’s also still godawful movie-making.

What happens to Larry Fishburne in the franchise where he was a very big deal in the first movie? He’s barely in it. Demoted to hanging out with the cast introduced in the last movie and having nothing to do with the main plotline he’s around. Though it’s not much better for “lead” Reeves and romantic interest but also action sidekick Carrie-Anne Moss. They’re nowhere near the film’s biggest action set piece. Fishburne doesn’t get to participate in the action (because he’s not a CGI flying, techno-Lovecraftian flying thing, or a machine-gunning version of the Aliens power loader) in the big set-piece. Still, he’s at least ostensibly vital to it.

He’s not because the script instead wants to be about how Harry Lennix is a joyless hard-ass who doesn’t think Reeves will turn out to be Matrix Jesus and save the day. Fishburne’s most significant scene in the movie is his debriefing. The human survivor council has some questions. This time there’s a Black lady (Francine Bell) who gets not just a close-up but also to talk. There are also the pointless old white people—bad seventies sci-fi guy Anthony Zerbe and “why didn’t you stunt cast this part” Robyn Nevin—plus Black man Cornel West doing a cameo. The movie’s just Fishburne getting less and less to do.

Well, except maybe Moss. Moss, who started the franchise with less screen time than the boys but still just as important (and then more important for some other reasons), basically gets put into a freezer. She’s the damsel in distress. Even though she’s the one who hijacks the initial plot.

The movie opens with Reeves still in a coma since Reloaded ended three minutes before and a new captain (David Leonard) leading the B plot. Leonard should have been in Reloaded and may have been in Reloaded, but I’m not checking. I don’t remember him from it, so he mustn’t have had more than two lines because, at three lines, you realize how bad his performance will be. And it just gets worse and worse.

Ditto Ian Bliss, who appeared last time as a counter-revolutionary and potential traitor to the humans. He’s got the film’s most important scene… maybe second important, but it depends. Most important or second most important. And he sucks. He’s comically bad. He’s supposed to be mimicking one of the other actors in the movie, and it’s painfully obvious he’s doing it, but none of the characters notice, so they’re all taken by surprise later on. It makes all the good guys seem like they’re not actually attentive enough to pull off saving the world.

Anyway.

Reeves is in his coma, but not really; he’s in the Matrix, where he learns the programs can love, which changes everything. If they can love, they’re people too. It’s an interesting idea—the value of life extending to artificial life—and probably the only one in the entire movie? Matrix Revolutions doesn’t even try with the philosophical nonsense of the last one. Instead, there’s a bang bang, boom boom solution to things in this one.

Moss and Fishburne have to go save Reeves, returning to visit last movie’s bad guy, Lambert Wilson. The previous film started with the machines due at humanity’s last refuge in thirty-six hours to wipe them out. This movie begins with those same machines due in twelve hours. So when Wilson says, “Didn’t think I’d be a returning villain so soon?” to our heroes… it’s been like three hours since they’ve seen each other. And Wilson’s got an entirely new gang of sidekicks, who are going to do a big fight scene, and then Moss and Fishburne will have to work for him and on and on and on. Until Moss cuts the bullshit and the cliffhanger resolve is all over.

Then it’s just setting up Moss and Reeves to go to the never-before mentioned Machine City, where all the programs live, presumably, under the watchful eye of the MCP—because he’s going to convince them he’s their savior too. Fishburne, Pinkett Smith, Leonard, and still charmlessly in the movie Harold Perrineau are going to the human city to try to stop the first wave of the invasion. They’ve got the only weapon left on the planet to do it. We didn’t see the destruction of the others; Revolutions covers it in a poorly acted exposition dump. Because it’s a bad movie.

The big set-piece is the humans trying to fend off the invading metal octopus monsters while Pinkett Smith tries to make the Kessel Run less than twelve parsecs. There’s a really shitty subtext about it because Lennix, Pinkett Smith’s boyfriend, doesn’t just not think she can do it, he didn’t listen to her when she undoubtedly told him about the times she did it. I get the Fishburne, Lennix, and Pinkett Smith love triangle thing doesn’t really work out because Lennix is risibly bad, and Fishburne and Pinkett Smith repulse each other like magnets in the chemistry department… but why not fix it? Maybe there was a deadline. It’s always good to kill your darlings with a rushed finale; everyone says so.

Again, anyway.

The big battle scene is terrible. This time out, Bill Pope’s photography is slightly better than the second movie, but it’s still unbelievable he’s had other jobs, including doing the excellently photographed original. It’s a mawkish scene, all about macho battlefield stuff while playing with bad eighties toys done in not terrible CGI. Not good CGI, not well-lighted CGI, but not terrible CGI. Not well-directed future war action either. But. The CGI exhibits competence at some base levels. It’s long, it’s boring, and there’s this weird subplot with Nona Gaye and her female sidekick, who very much don’t have macho war movie bonding going on. The movie intentionally gives it to The Not-Feral Kid (Clayton Watson) to do a lousy job with it while Gaye gets action but squat as far as character. Gaye’s bad, but Watson’s much, much worse. It’s just another crappy part of the movie.

Speaking of Not-Feral Kids… there’s a genuinely awful cameo from Bruce Spence. It seems like a Road Warrior reference, making it the only time the Wachowskis fully extend the homage, but Spence is so terrible they really shouldn’t have done it. Revolutions is even worse than the last one. It’s an achievement in missing the target time after time.

And, so, finally, let’s talk Hugo Weaving. The first movie’s break-out performance. The first sequel’s pointless addition amid pointless additions. He’s now the anti-Reeves, wanting to take over the Matrix for himself by turning everyone in the Matrix—presumably humans (we never see it because dead civilians after all) and programs alike. Reeves will have to do a flying kung fu battle with him to save the world.

The flying kung fu battle’s better than you’d expect, given the rest of the movie, but Weaving’s performance isn’t just easily the worst in the film; it’s cartoonish in a way it’s unbelievable Weaving wasn’t trying to make it bad. Like he was out to sabotage the movie. It’s unspeakably bad. And utterly pointless.

The nicest thing to say about the Matrix Revolutions is Reeves, Moss, and Fishburne never embarrass themselves. Reeves and Moss get some saccharine sludge for material, and Fishburne’s got to act opposite Lennix and Leonard, but they make it through professionally. Ditto Mary Alice (replacing Foster), Lambert, Bernard White as a very special program, Gina Torres, and Collin Chou (maybe). Everyone else is bad and worse. And there’s no end to the worse.

Rupert Reid’s particularly annoying as Lennix’s sidekick, not just because he should’ve been there last time, but also because he manages to be even less charismatic than Lennix. You don’t want a performance less charismatic than Lennix’s. It’s a dangerous place.

Bad music from Don Davis.

Not bad editing from Zach Staenberg; he’s doing the best he can with insipid material.

In addition to being an insipid mishmash of action and sci-fi movie nods, kiddie pool depth philosophy, and bad acting, Revolutions is also a really boring version of that movie. Revolutions is bad, disappointing, and bored with itself.

The only bigger “Why?” than “Why watch Matrix Revolutions” is, “Why make Matrix Revolutions.”

At least be honest and call it The Matrix Contractual Obligations.

The Matrix Reloaded (2003, The Wachowskis)

I’m trying to think of something nice to say about The Matrix Reloaded. None of the returning good guys give bad performances? None of the leading returning good guys? Like, Gloria Foster’s back and, while she doesn’t give a bad performance, it’s an utterly charmless one heavily leveraging her charm in the last movie. But she’s gone from Black grandmother saving the future to… something else. The something else is a third act reveal without Foster’s participation, but the one scene she does get definitely changes the trajectory the first movie promised.

Reloaded takes place approximately six months after the first Matrix. In that amount of time, Keanu Reeves and Laurence Fishburne have changed their outfits—Fishburne’s got a different leather jacket while Reeves goes with a cloth cassock. Carrie-Anne Moss still does the whole shiny leather thing. It might make for a great scene if they had any personality or character relationships. But there’s not a lot of character in Reloaded for the trio.

Other than Reeves and Moss being lovey-dovey and trying to find make-out time when they’re not busy saving the world. Or when people in the real world are begging Reeves to save their relatives from the Matrix. Or when they’re bringing alms to Reeves. Plus, Reeves is having dreams about Moss dying, which is how the movie starts—a lengthy action sequence with Moss falling to her death before Reeves wakes up scared and sad. He has other ominous dreams, which seem to be really happening, but he never acknowledges his prescience. Even when he and Foster talk around it.

All Fishburne gets in the character development arena is… ex-girlfriend Jada Pinkett Smith’s new boyfriend, Harry Lennox, is willing to destroy the future of humanity because he doesn’t like how Pinkett Smith used to like Fishburne. Pinkett Smith’s terrible, but Lennox is a whole other level of bad. He’d be comically bad if he weren’t actually ruining the scenes. Pinkett Smith doesn’t get enough to do to ruin them. Lennox does get enough and does ruin them.

Though the Wachowskis’ bewildering, seemingly ready for pan-and-scan composition doesn’t help. Maybe they were just bored with the political goings-on too. Lennox is the human resistance army commander and doesn’t think Reeves is the Matrix messiah, though it’s never clear why except to make Lennox more of a dick. The human settlement stuff is weird in a bad way. The only time the Wachowskis show any interest in it is when there’s a sex scene for Reeves and Moss (who apparently can’t do it on their ship because Fishburne and new crew member Harold Perrineau are around) intercut with a very sweaty dance party. Hundreds of scantily clad humans bumping and grinding. Only not the politicians who run the future settlement. Thankfully. Not sure I wanted to see Anthony Zerbe getting down with his shirt off, dripping in sweat from the subterranean heat.

Zerbe’s the council member who isn’t sure Reeves is magic but will risk it. There are some weird optics in having old white guy Zerbe bossing around all the Black people who do the work in the future city. The optics worsen when old white lady Robyn Nevin shows up and does the same thing. Because even though the council itself is diverse, it’s only those two people talking. Well, them and Cornel West, who’s a Black man, but he just parrots Niven and Zerbe. The entire subplot with the survivor city is terrible, even though it’s the de facto A plot since they’ve got thirty-six hours before the machines kill them all. Lennox wants all the ships protecting the city, but Fishburne and Reeves want to go up and into the Matrix. Specifically to see Foster, who drops some big truth bombs on Reeves, which he apparently never tells Fishburne about.

Do Reeves and Fishburne actually have any scenes together? Do they have any conversations before the epilogue? They’re around each other, they have an action scene or two in each other’s company, but they don’t have a character relationship. No time for that sort of thing in Reloaded.

The film’s a series of pseudo-intellectual monologues, seemingly divorced from the first film’s mythology—Matrix Reloaded owes more to TRON in that department than it does to its predecessor—and tedious, pointless action sequences.

Hugo Weaver comes back as a rogue agent—meaning the Matrix is after him too—who can self-replicate, so Reeves has to fight dozens of Weavers at a time for absolutely no narrative reason. The scenes just slow down the plot and create bad set pieces (Reloaded feels like three different sequel ideas glued together).

But those Weaver sequences manage to be more consequential than the eventual main plot for Reeves, which has him confronting one peculiar computer program after another. Including Lambert Wilson, who decided to affect a horny Frenchman for his Matrix avatar, much to wife Monica Bellucci’s displeasure. But Bellucci’s also got her issues.

Wilson’s got a gang of cyberpunk thugs who will fight Reeves and company. They’re not worth talking about, even though the Wachowskis try to make them more interesting by implying they started out as vampires and werewolves or some nonsense. It’s just terrible. Most of them are gone after the first too-long fight, with only Neil and Adrian Rayment sticking around for two set-pieces. I don’t want to get into the Rayments, who are terrible actors in terrible roles, but one could spend a lot of time on all the things bad about them. Maybe not even starting with them being white men with dreadlocks, but definitely getting to it.

So much lousy acting, whether Lennox, Pinkett Smith, Zerbe, Ian Bliss, the Rayments, Perrineau (who’s profoundly lacking in charisma just like his predecessor, Marcus Chong, in the last movie), Nona Gaye as Perrineau’s pointlessly overbearing wife, Collin Chou as Foster’s bodyguard (a computer program who needs to fight a man to see if they can be pals or some nonsense). Helmut Bakaitis has a singularly important part and is godawful.

It’s a terrible sequel, a terrible movie.

Even the returning crew from last time—cinematographer Bill Pope, composer Don Davis—who did excellent work there do bad work here. Pope can’t light for all the green-screened composite shots, and Davis’s score is bad.

Last thing—the CGI models for Reeves. He’s got some Superman-esque flying going on, and whenever he does it, there’s some terrible CGI head on the model.

Nothing the Wachowskis do in Reloaded works, but none of it seems like they care if it works either. It’s the pits.

The Matrix (1999, The Wachowskis)

The Matrix starts kicking ass in the second half. The first act clunks along, introducing both Keanu Reeves’s plot and then the Carrie-Anne Moss and Laurence Fishburne one. The second act makes a lot of promises and stumbles delivering on them. There’s this big fight scene between Reeves and Fishburne, and instead of accelerating the film’s momentum, it intentionally stalls it out again.

The film opens with Moss on the run from the cops and the Men in Black—a phenomenal Hugo Weaving and the lackluster Paul Goddard and Robert Taylor. She’s a cyberpunk hacker who can leap (between) medium-sized buildings in a single bound. Right after Moss’s fantastical introduction, Matrix switches into mundane with Reeves’s white-collar computer programmer. After he gets a prescient message on his computer screen, Reeves goes out clubbing and meets Moss, only to wake up late the following day. At work, he gets a special delivery—a cell phone. It rings, Fishburne calling to warn him Weaver is after him.

Now, if Reeves listens to Fishburne in this scene, the movie will get to the second act faster, so of course, he doesn’t and instead gets arrested. It’s okay, as it allows for the first great scene from Weaver in the film. But then immediately following, Moss comes along (with friends who aren’t going to matter other than looking cool) to rescue Reeves. Not from Weaver, but from reality. Or what he thinks is reality.

Because the actual reality is humanity is being used as batteries for the machines who have taken over the planet. Moss, Fishburne, and the aforementioned indistinct but cool pals (save Joe Pantoliano, who’s intentionally not cool but also very distinct) are freedom fighters who live in the real world—one suffering an endless nuclear winter thanks to the war of the machines—and try to fight the computers, with the fake reality (The Matrix) their battlefield.

And Fishburne’s absolutely positive Reeves is their John Connor. Just no one else is sure. Especially not Reeves, who isn’t thrilled to find out his entire life’s not just a lie but also fake. Even if it does mean he can learn kung fu as fast as it can be uploaded onto his brain via Sony MiniDisc.

The biggest problem with the first half of The Matrix is the sluggish plotting, which keeps Moss in the background so she can save a surprise for later, as well as the tell then show then tell some more style of storytelling. But also the lack of character development for the indistinct but cool pals. The only ones who get anything to do are Pantoliano, who’s disgruntled, and then tech guy Marcus Chong. Chong can’t go into the Matrix because he’s a regular human born out in the post-apocalyptic real world, so instead, he operates the computers to send the other people back in. Chong’s bad. He’s not the worst performance—I mean, he’s close, but he’s much better than Goddard and Tylor—but he’s got terrible timing and bad writing. He’s a charisma vacuum in a part utterly dependent on it.

Once Reeves heads back into the Matrix as one of Fishburne’s team, and they stop promising to do something great and start doing some great things, the film takes off. Starting with Reeves going to visit Gloria Foster. Foster’s the fortune-teller who’s going to suss out whether or not Fishburne found the right guy to save the world.

While The Matrix’s most outstanding achievement is probably its technicals, there’s also something really cool in how the people saving the future are Black (Fishburne and Foster). It just feels right. And special. The film even seems aware of it, with Fishburne alluding towards it during a fistfight with Smith.

The film’s second half is a continual action sequence, primarily set in the Matrix where Reeves, Moss, and Fishburne can do kung fu and shoot guns. The gun stuff gets a little tiresome, but it’s more technically impressive than the kung fu. The best action involves a helicopter rescue sequence; directors Wachowski do their best work on that one, with some excellent editing from Zach Staenberg. The lengthy kung fu fights are all slowed down for emphasis, which makes them less visually impressive, but does allow time to focus on the characters’ experience of the fights, whether it’s Reeves starting to think he actually might be the white savior Fishburne’s looking for, or Weaver coming to a similar conclusion. Good for Reeves, bad for Weaver.

Weaver’s best scene in the movie isn’t opposite Reeves, but Fishburne. Reeves is just Weaver’s fisticuffs nemesis, while Fishburne’s the one he can talk to about two levels of artificial life.

Great music from Don Davis, great photography from Bill Pope. The Wachowskis’ direction of actors isn’t always the best—especially in the first half—but their approach pays off for the actors it needs to pay off for (i.e., Moss). Oddly, they direct Reeves better outside the Matrix scenes than inside, which is an anomaly. Though Reeves probably plays worse inside the Matrix than out because of that super-clunky first act and then the tedious hero’s journey in the second.

Fishburne’s great, Weaver’s great, Pantoliano’s great. Foster. Foster’s really great. If it weren’t for Weaver’s scenes getting better (until they don’t), Foster would be the best performance with just her one scene. But it’s Weaver.

Moss and Reeves are excellent together, which is the point, even if it takes a while. And relies on third act reveals to inform previous scenes.

Reeves is a good lead. He’s best reacting to other people, just so long as they’re strong enough to hold the scenes.

The Wachowskis’ script has some problems, and they can’t always make the obviousness work—then other times sail through it—but the pacing is fantastic. The direction’s usually exceptional.

There are a handful of movie homages. Star Wars and Terminator are the most obvious, plus whatever the wire fu pictures they’re referencing, and there’s eventually a nice Western nod.

Matrix is good. and they can’t always make the obviousness work—then other times sail through it—but the pacing is fantastic. The direction’s usually exceptional.

There are a handful of movie homages. Star Wars and Terminator are the most obvious, plus whatever the wire fu pictures they’re referencing, and there’s eventually a nice Western nod.

Matrix is good.

Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021, Jon Watts)

Spider-Man: No Way Home’s got a very appropriate title. There’s just no way to bring this one home, not for any of the things it tries to do. Though “tries” might be stretching it, No Way Home’s script feels like it’s four different ideas strung together with plot points dependent on the latest Academy Award-nominated or winning actor they managed to convince to come back for it.

But as Tom Holland’s Spider-Man seeming comes to its end—and, no spoilers (which I’m going to try hard to maintain), one way or another, something definitely ends here. No Way Home is a very particular collaboration between Disney and Sony; Disney owns Spider-Man: The Character and Sony owns Spider-Man: The Movie Rights. They weren’t even going to make this movie until Holland called the Disney head honcho and pleaded they go back to the table to make a deal. Disney was ready to leave it hanging on the previous entry’s cliffhanger.

So, while the producers are doing press rounds saying Holland’s not done… it’d be “okay” if he were done. No one in the MCU proper will be missing Spider-Man after No Way Home.

The film brings back major stars from all Sony’s previous Spider-Man franchises, though it never really gives them enough time. No Way Home’s set up to be Holland’s movie, but he loses it in the second half, and when it’s time to hand it back to him, they’ve broken it. They give him the pieces and send him on his way, the numerous epilogues just showcasing how noncommittal anyone wants to be about there ever being another Tom Holland Spider-Man movie again. It’s also a bummer for Zendaya and Jacob Batalan, who get to play sidekicks to a much fuller degree in this outing. No Way Home’s most consistently successful, non-gimmick moments are the ones playing off the trio. The movie does noticeably avoid giving Zendaya anything to do but play the damsel—and not just for Holland—while Batalan gets a potential spin-off setup.

To be clear, Batalan’s delightful, but some of that delightfulness is at Zendaya’s expense.

So the movie fails Holland and his Home trilogy sidekicks (it is nice to see Zendaya get to do more in this one, even if it’s just filler), it fails Holland as the MCU Spider-Man, but it also doesn’t really do anything for the returning Sony Spider-Man franchise participants either. I mean, it also really fails director Watts, who’s stuck directing actors in caricatures of former performances. Spider-Man: No Way Home is groundbreaking but only as a force of commercial will. There’s never been anything like it. And probably can’t be anything like it again; some of the actors look so miserable in this outing, it’s hard to imagine them returning.

It’s a movie without stakes for anyone involved, except potentially guest star Benedict Cumberbatch, who’s worried new boss Benedict Wong will find out how badly the guest star spot is going. All Holland wanted was for everyone to forget last movie’s big twist ending, and instead, he and Cumberbatch break the Spider-Verse. Sorry, multiverse. There’s no Spider-Verse crossover, which is the film’s most obvious miss. Well, the movie’s fourth story’s most obvious miss. There are obvious misses in the three stories preceding it, too, possibly four when you remember there’s not actually a supervillain team-up, just supervillain coincidences. Like it’s an old Godzilla movie, and all the kaiju show up somewhere because otherwise you don’t have a fight, and otherwise you don’t have a Godzilla movie.

Is a Spider-Man movie just a set piece with a bunch of swinging and thwapping action? No, but No Way Home would sure like to get away with one.

Most unfortunately, the film fails Holland as an actor. After single-handedly being the most important addition to the MCU since its inception, his (latest) potential finale turns all his character drama into a multiverse detail gimmick. It then drains any of the remaining resonance in the epilogues. No Way Home is just a graceful out for his Spider-career, which is easily the longest in the movies (six real appearances, one pseudo-cameo), and second only to Nicholas Hammond in live-action appearances. And Hammond was doing a TV show.

Holland’s emotional response to the events in the film—when they still matter to anyone—always get neatly wrapped into a Spider-Man lesson from previous participants from other franchises. The epilogues cheat Holland out of his character arc, just like the very tidy finale cheating all the guest stars out of their arcs. One of the significant developments in No Way Home is Marisa Tomei inspiring Holland not to give up even on the bad guys—especially the ones made bad by science mishaps—and it ends up being one of those stories to nowhere, taken off the stovetop for the next surprise guest star.

It’d be easy to blame the whole thing on screenwriters Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers, but it’s obviously not their fault—not to mention the movie shot during Rona, so there were more factors than the Brinks truck not being full enough. Instead, No Way Home is just a series of gimmicks competently realized with a $200 million price tag.

There are some good performances. Holland’s strong despite the material, ditto Zendaya. Cumberbatch is fun. Jon Favreau seems like he’s trapped in a contract. Marisa Tomei’s got shockingly little despite being in the movie a bunch; she does get one kind of funny flirting scene straight out of the comics. Sort of.

Some of the bad acting is just… the whole caricatures of previous performances thing. It’s like looping an entire performance and not just the dialogue. The standout amongst returning villains is easily Alfred Molina, who’s also in it the most and has the closest thing to a character arc.

And some of the previous performance caricatures work. Just not as much for the villains; it seems like if you’re a bad guy and you’re not bringing anything new, it’s a fail, but if you’re a good guy… it can work.

There are also just plain bad performances like Arian Moayed, the federal agent out for Holland’s hide. That story—the resolution to last movie’s cliffhanger—is all busywork, relying on real surprise (and welcome) cameos and then some decent jokes. There will be okay jokes later on, but they’re just funny and not actually good. Kind of like the movie itself: even when it’s not failing, it’s never truly succeeding.

No Way Home doesn’t quite prove truncated franchises are better than unimaginatively completed ones, but it comes real close.

The Strawberry Blonde (1941, Raoul Walsh)

The Strawberry Blonde is a period piece within a period piece. It opens in the past, then there’s a flashback to the further past. It recalls a time when WASPs couldn’t figure out how to eat spaghetti and the political corruption machine was easier to crack. Director Walsh is very enthusiastic about the time period and setting (turn of the century New York); almost distractingly so.

The film opens with working men James Cagney and George Tobias hanging out on a Sunday, getting into a tiff with some lounging college folks across the fence, while Cagney tries to put off having to take wife Olivia de Havilland for their weekly walk. There’s a lengthy exposition dump about how Cagney’s ended up in his current situation and how it’s the fault of someone they used to know.

And just who should call for an emergency Sunday dental appointment (Cagney’s a dentist, Blonde is set in the mail correspondence course era of dental schools) but that someone (Jack Carson, but we haven’t met him yet).

While the script—Julius J. and Philip G. Epstein—is very snappy with the dialogue, including bringing up the coincidental nature of it all, it doesn’t bother trying to get around Cagney telling the story to someone who already knows it; we’ll find out Tobias was there for all of it. So then, the film drops into a further flashback, ten years before.

And it opens on Cagney’s dad, Alan Hale, having adventures without Cagney witnessing them. Hale sees himself as the neighborhood Casanova, romancing the housewives while the husbands are out. Strawberry Blonde makes sure everyone gets at least one really good, really solid scene—they rarely overlap between actors—but pretty much everything Hale gets is gold. When Hale disappears in the second act so Cagney can get into his perceived love triangle, the film feels the loss—and it’s on the film; Walsh’s showcasing of Hale’s comedic abilities doesn’t affect the narrative at all, it’s just because Hale’s great at the physical comedy.

All the guys in the neighborhood have a crush on Rita Hayworth, but none of them have the courage to talk to her… not until Carson has the excuse of selling charity tickets. Of course, the tickets are a scam but it doesn’t matter (there’s a dropped subplot about Cagney selling tickets for Carson, which gives them an excuse to hang out together but doesn’t factor in otherwise). Hayworth takes to Carson, dropping a hint about where he can meet her without a formal introduction, only they’re going to have to bring friends to keep it proper. He brings Cagney, she brings de Havilland.

There’s an obvious age difference between Cagney and de Havilland, which ends up really helping the relationship, even though a lot of his problem is he’s just a cocky jerk. He’s got a good heart in there somewhere, which de Havilland recognizes right away, when she’s busy trying to convince him she’s wise beyond her years and a suffragette activist to boot. Cagney doesn’t go in for that kind of progress and would prefer a girl like Hayworth. Specifically Hayworth.

The second act is Cagney’s pursuing Hayworth while de Havilland and Carson hang around on the sidelines. While most of the film is Cagney against type—he’s always getting beat up—the plot eventually does at least appear like a more predicted Cagney one; the third act introduces and resolves that drama, then there’s the return to the (still period) present for the wrap-up. There are additional flashback tiers; there’s a skip ahead a couple years from the earliest flashback, then another five years (so the final flashback scene is three-ish years before the present).

Walsh and the Brothers Epstein do a fantastic job keeping the plot moving, which isn’t always easy since Cagney’s frequently making a fool of himself.

Performance-wise, de Havilland is the obvious winner. She only gets a couple big scenes and she’s magnificent; from the start, the film’s got a sort of peculiar relationship with the comedy because Cagney can’t do it as well as Hale or Tobias. When Cagney’s watching Hale, waiting for his line, you can see the excitement on his face, getting to work opposite the more comically inclined Hale. But when de Havilland shows up, she immediately gets how to do the comedy. In a few minutes she’s able to elevate the entire project.

Cagney’s good. There’s not really the opportunity for anything great and he doesn’t create one, but he’s good. After all the work he does for comedy’s sake, when he finally does get his spotlight scenes, they’re just riffs on gangster melodrama.

Hayworth gets a phenomenal scene and the biggest character arc, but she seems underutilized. Though it wouldn’t be Cagney’s movie if it were actually about The Strawberry Blonde. It also wouldn’t be a comedy.

Carson’s good; kind of broad, but he makes it work.

Hale’s great.

Excellent use of songs, great sets and costumes, good or great direction from Walsh—there do seem to be some strange film stock issues going on, where cinematographer James Wong Howe just isn’t able to match lighting between shots, but it seems like it’s got to be something other than him.

The Strawberry Blonde’s a fun vehicle for Cagney and an exquisite showcase for de Havilland’s comedic chops (when she gets to show them). It’s forties studio comedy done right.

The Eagle and the Hawk (1933, Stuart Walker)

The Eagle and the Hawk starts light and ends very heavy. Astoundingly—and appropriately—heavy. Eagle is a WWI flying ace picture, all about a group of British fliers who go to France only to discover war isn’t like playing polo actually.

Right after an inventive segue from opening titles to the present action, the film has a very lumpy first act. Cary Grant has just landed he and Fredric March’s plane upside because he’s a bad pilot and then Jack Oakie comes along to make some jokes. Bogart Rogers and Seton I. Miller’s script is particularly rough in this section, ditto Walker’s direction. There’s also the problem Grant’s not very good and March’s character is real shallow. Oakie’s around with a shallower character, so it works out a little, but not well.

Soon enough, March and Oakie are in France—March having left Grant grounded in England—and they quickly find out people you meet die in war too, not just faceless Germans. Walker is bad at the first act comedy and noticeably better (if still not great) at the drama. A lot of the problem is the script, but then there’s also James Smith’s (uncredited) editing. Sure, Walker probably didn’t give Smith enough coverage–Eagle always feels frustratingly rushed and slightly on the cheap, particularly with the supporting cast—but there are some profoundly bad cuts in the film. It gets to the point you have to predict the jump cuts so you can follow where the actors have moved while still in the middle of the same continuous scene.

March goes through numerous observers—which ought to be a great montage sequence but Walker screws it up in an obvious way (the film ends up implying only March ever loses any observers in combat and yet gets all the medals for them dying)—until there’s no one left in France so they bring in Grant. They’ve got some unresolved hostility to work through, in addition to Grant being a sociopathic bully, but eventually March’s functional alcoholism starts getting dysfunctional and commanding officer Guy Standing has to do something about it.

That something ends up involving a Carole Lombard cameo—the public’s got to have a pretty face—and she’s great but it’s complete filler. Though it does give March another good couple scenes, including meeting bloodthirsty little ghoul kid Douglas Scott and his mother, Virginia Hammond, seemingly realizing toxic masculinity is probably bad.

At its best, Eagle and the Hawk gives March the material he needs to give an exquisite performance. It’s never quite up to snuff—the final monologue needs to be better, even if March knocks it out of the park—thanks to the script and the direction. Walker (or possibly “associate” director Mitchell Leisen) have some occasional great instincts and the sound design is always right and Harry Fischbeck comes through on the photography when tasked… but there’s only so high Eagle can fly with its various albatrosses.

Grant in particular doesn’t help. Even as he improves throughout, it’s a combination of his acting being a tad too inconsistent and Walker not knowing how to direct the film.

And Standing needs to be better if he’s going to be so earnest in his indifference to the loss of human life.

Oh, and Kenneth Howell. Howell’s the new kid whose supposed to be angelic and it’s a fail for multiple reasons, including Howell not being very good. Again, Walker’s no doubt responsible for a lot of it.

But March is good enough alone he almost makes Eagle and the Hawk worth it.

Elizabeth Is Missing (2019, Aisling Walsh)

I’m not sure what I thought Elizabeth Is Missing was going to be—I only half read a description—but when it became clear Glenda Jackson’s character (not Elizabeth) would be searching for that character (played by Maggie Steed) but also Jackson having Alzheimer’s and also sort of live action flashbacks with her younger self… Well, I hoped they weren’t going to do a Memento where the gimmick was someone’s Alzheimer’s.

My hope was not realized. Elizabeth Is Missing is indeed a ninety-ish minute pseudo-mystery where there’s no mystery it’s just Jackson’s Alzheimer’s is getting worse and she’s having a lot of bad memory triggers. Jackson not understanding what’s going on is director Walsh, screenwriter Andrea Gibb, and presumably source novelist Emma Healey’s gimmick. Jackson can’t remember the really important parts of the plot so we discover them late, creating opportunity for Jackson to experience realizing she’s not remembering something and consequently having a trauma.

So while Jackson’s really good, it’s by definition exploitative. Like. Dementia advisor or not; the plot itself is inherently exploitative.

Bummer, I guess? In hindsight—you know, if you went through and looked for all the signs Bruce Willis was a ghost, which I’m sure you can—it’s probably inevitable it’s going to fail. The scant subplot about Jackson’s daughter, Helen Behan (who should talk to her agent about better parts), being exhausted with having to care for an ailing parent while her older brother and the prize child (Sam Hazeldine) occasionally Skypes from Germany and is no help… they definitely could’ve done it better. I just hadn’t realized it was them doing it the best they could.

Because Jackson’s really good and you’re really invested in her and flipping it to make her an unreliable narrator and a pitiable subject… it’s really unfortunate. And a waste of Jackson’s time. There’s a far better movie in granddaughter Nell Williams and Jackson, I don’t know, going to the library for ninety minutes in real time than there is in a Double MacGuffin with Cheese murder mystery.

The flashbacks are all about young Jackson—played by Liv Hill—and her missing sister Sophie Rundle, which has all sorts of analogues with missing best friend Steed. It also has the memory loss MacGuffin being the only part because there’s no character development for young Hill. And there’s also a deus ex machina? Because it’s really lazy and a waste of everyone’s time.

Kind of good music from Dominik Scherrer; like a horror movie score but he never leans into it enough.

But no. They can’t even manage to give Jackson a good part by the end of it. Once they’ve made all the reveals, the filmmakers have no enthusiasm for the finish. Behan and Williams have some good moments—though Williams’s are a lot less problematic than Behan’s—otherwise the supporting cast is middling.

It’s a strange, unfortunate ninety minutes.