Category: Directors Yo

Spiritwalker (2020, Yoon Jae-geun)

I was expecting Spiritwalker’s MacGuffin to disappoint, but I wasn’t expecting it to completely derail the film. Spiritwalker is a high-concept action thriller about an amnesiac, Yoon Kye-sang, who discovers he is quantum leaping from person-to-person every twelve hours. He also has a very particular set of skills. Those skills come in handy because everyone he jumps into is some kind of underworld figure. Yoon’s got vague memories of his life before—something about a woman, Lim Ji-Yeon, of course—and his only friend is Park Ji-hwan.

Park’s character is an unhoused person who happens upon Yoon in a car accident and calls it in (while searching the car for loose items). He’s also the most uncomplicated fun Spiritwalker ever gets to have, with lots of comic reactions to discovering Yoon in a new body. Yoon mostly plays the part every time, with reflections and camera footage showing the actual person he’s possessed. After the MacGuffin reveal, Spiritwalker makes several bad moves, but the worst is Park mostly disappearing from the movie, followed by director Yoon Jae-geun not using Yoon enough. It wouldn’t end up mattering—the third act is a CGI composited action ballet bloodbath–but after a whole movie creating his character, director Yoon shafts actor Yoon.

There are some other big problems in the post-MacGuffin film, as well, like Spiritwalker deciding the criminal underworld also needs a covert espionage agency subplot tacked on and then final boss Park Yong-woo having a pointless drug addiction bit. The movie runs an hour and fifty-ish minutes and could easily lose ten from the third act. There’s lots of needless activity just to drag it out, which makes sense since the MacGuffin’s so bad.

Approximately the first half of Spiritwalker is a sort of neo-noir. Yoon is working his way through this criminal organization, jumping from crook to crook and trying to remember what’s going on. Sidekick Park can only help so much, and since all of the people Yoon’s inhabiting are dangerous criminals, no one really wants to exposition dump with him. Especially not Lim, who thinks he’s a bad guy (obviously).

The amnesia and identity crisis mix works, especially since director Yoon never tries too hard with the action. All of actor Yoon’s “particular skill” scenes surprise him, which makes the scenes more entertaining and sympathetic. The reveal on the quantum leaping will be both bad and insipid, but—again—what happens after is even worse. As a thriller director, Yoon’s solid. As an action director? Not so much. His composition for the third act is always off and always predictable. He goes through the same setups over and over. All of Spiritwalker’s technical pay-off comes in the early second act; the rest is a visual bore.

Until the script literally abandons him, actor Yoon’s a good lead. He does the confused quantum leaper thing well, though it might not be a compliment. He’s best at being bewildered without character development. Lim’s fine as the not femme fatale who inexplicably has a similar particular set of skills. That late second act reveal of the espionage agency’s involvement pays zero dividends and trades ostensible coherence for personality. Suddenly, director Yoon wants to be making a John Wick or something, complete with level bosses; Lim gets lost in it all.

Park Ji-hwan is good and fun as the sidekick. Park Yong-woo is fantastic as the big boss; it’s an exceptionally thin part, but Park devours enough scenery to plump it up.

The rest of the supporting cast is solid without being distinct.

Spiritwalker’s only ever going to be able to go so far on its concept, but it should’ve been able to go farther than it gets. It’s never bad and is rather compelling until the loud, yawner of a third act, but it’s a definite bummer.

Legends of Tomorrow (2016) s05e05 – A Head of Her Time

Continuing whatever this season is doing with its creative Arrowverse accounting, Dominic Purcell and Caity Lotz mostly sit out this episode. Lotz is in Star City on some kind of bland personal business, which leaves Jes Macallan in charge. Macallan, who used to run an extra-dimensional time agency, gets very worried about captaining the Legends, which leads to her bonding with Tala Ashe, which is fine.

Meanwhile Purcell is just heartsick and apparently off drinking about it during the action.

Apparently having Purcell and Lotz on partial duty means Maisie Richardson-Sellers and Adam Tsekhman get to do things, so they’re the backup in Matt Ryan’s Constantine story arc. They really should’ve renamed it “John Constantine and the Legends of Tomorrow,” then did a bit about how Ryan got more famous than everyone else and it’s a thing. But they didn’t and instead it’s “Legends of Tomorrow with Special Guest Star John Constantine.”

Ryan, Richardson-Sellers, and Tsekhman are doing a horror humor bit involving Ryan’s history with Hell villain Olivia Swann. Turns out Ryan used to have a thing for Swann’s mom, Alice Hunter, and maybe only consigned Swann to Hell because he was trying to resurrect Hunter. The flashbacks also allow for Ryan with a mohawk, which is a lot of fun.

Also a lot of fun is the main plot, which has Macallan, Ashe, Brandon Routh, Nick Zano, and I hope they keep him around somehow Shayan Sobhian trying to get a resurrected and not entirely unjustifiably angry Marie Antoinette (Courtney Ford) from ruining history.

Ford, who also plays another character, a fairly regular cast member, is pretty funny as Antoinette and the gimmick works.

Amidst the Antoinette arc is Ashe’s misadventures as a rookie time traveling superhero, though some of those misadventures are because she’s also a 2040 social media influencer who wants to exploit history for likes. It works out, especially with the big gala event for the action-packed finale. “Legends” is doing an excellent job integrating the character development with the action this season.

Mothra 3: King Ghidorah Attacks (1998, Yoneda Okihiro)

Mothra 3: King Ghidorah Attacks is simultaneously accessible but also one for the Mothra fans, which is a bit of a weird thing to think about. The film presupposes there are going to be dedicated Mothra fans in the audience and gears a lot of references towards them–at the moment I was appreciating the imagination behind the prehistoric larval Mothra, I realized I was definitely in that dedicated audience. While concerning, there’s so much good stuff in Mothra 3, it’s so creative.

Director Yoneda (who skipped the previous entry, but directed the first) has a bunch of differing styles and technologies going on. There’s miniatures, there’s man in suit, there’s CG, there’s CG-aided composites (which aren’t good), but then there’s CG-aided composites where background action moves into foreground and there’s just something to it. It’s a mix of special effects technologies pushed beyond what they can do. In seeing what’s too far, you do get to see where it would’ve been just right, where Mothra 3’s budget could have met Yoneda’s imagination. He’s gloriously, if unrealistically, ambitious with the film.

Suetani Masumi has a relatively solid script this outing (he scripted all three of these nineties Mothra films). There’s this troubled kid–the actor hasn’t ever gotten credit in an English language version apparently–who teams up with Mothra’s fairies to save the world. Except the fairies have a bigger story. There’s troublemaker fairy (Hano Aki, who tries really hard with no return from her costars), well-meaning fairy (Tate Misato) and perfect combination fairy (Kobayashi Megumi). Given how much they have to do in the film, it would really have helped if Tate weren’t awful and Kobayashi were a little better. With Kobayashi, the script fails her too often. But Tate’s bad. Otherwise Yoneda is good with the actors. The family stuff–basically uncredited troubled kid’s moodiness is just dragging down an otherwise happy family, though mom Matsuda Miyuki is way too young to have three kids and way too with it to be married to bumbling Fred Flintstone-esque Ohnita Atsushi.

And then there’s Mothra. Amazing set of Mothra designs in this one, as the creature itself has a fairly solid story arc. The traditional Mothra Christian imagery gets more integrated into the actual plot. There’s the very intentional rapturing imagery–Ghidorah flies over Japan, sucking up the children. And now since Mothra’s the boy giant moth, there’s a whole Mothra as Jesus thing, with Ghidorah graphically beating him and tearing away his flesh. Or wings. It’s a vicious kids movie.

Awesome Mothra song rendition. Yoneda treats it like a special aside, a wink at the audience. The special effects aren’t great–Mothra 3’s composite effects are really bad–but the enthusiasm carries it. There’s a thoroughness and sincerity to the film. Mothra 3 is a mix of story ideas, special effects ideas, acting styles (or lack thereof), yet it all works out. Yoneda brings it all together.

2/4★★

CREDITS

Directed by Yoneda Okihio; written by Suetani Masumi; director of photography, Sekiguchi Yoshinori; edited by Ogawa Nobuo; music by Watanabe Toshiyuki; produced by Tomiyama Shogo; released by Toho Company Ltd.

Starring Kobayashi Megumi (Moll), Tate Misato (Lora), Matsuda Miyuki (the mother), Ohnita Atsushi (the father) and Hano Aki (Belvera).

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Mothra (1996, Yoneda Okihiro)

Mothra has the arguably unlikely problem of having way too many good ideas at once. For over an hour, director Yoneda is able to keep all the balls in the air. Sure, things fall apart in the third act, but the pieces are still glorious and the first two acts are stupendous.

It’s a kids movie with giant monster fights. Suetani Masumi’s script acknowledges a handful of kaiju standards, but doesn’t try to fit them in. Even with a giant monster fight taking up the entire second half (or eighty-five percent of it), Yoneda and Suetani never get too far away from the kids. Yes, Mothra is the kids movie with the relatable kids having the adventure of their lives.

Only it starts–before the kaiju arrive in force–as this crazy kids movie where Fujisawa Maya gets evil powers and imprisons her mom and attacks her brother. Futami Kazuki plays the brother. He and Fujisawa are effective together, which is what Yoneda worries about more with the kids than good performances. He gets good performances out of their parents, especially mom Takahashi Hitomi. Nashimoto Kenjirô plays the dad. He’s a bit of a doof who works too much, which pisses off Takahashi. She’s got to worry about her family, worry about monsters, rescue her brainwashed husband. She’s got lots to do.

I’ve forgotten to mention the three sister fairies. Two good, one bad. It’s absurd and goofy and sort of wonderful. There are big action sequences with these doll-sized fairies flying around the family’s house having a laser battle. Yoneda is bold with these sequences. He’s not enthusiastic exactly, as he seems too aware of his budgetary constraints, but he’s definitely bold. These action scenes are good. They just have technical problems.

Then there’s Mothra, of course. She gets the hero role starting in the second act, doubling it up because there’s a larva version too. Yoneda goes for iconic with a lot of the Mothra shots, something Watanabe Toshiyuki’s score helps with a lot.

Mothra is a wild time with a weak third act. The narrative closes off far more naturally at the end of the second act, leaving the film scrambling to reestablish itself. It’s finish is rocky, but more successful than not.

1/4★

CREDITS

Directed by Yoneda Okihio; written by Suetani Masumi; director of photography, Sekiguchi Yoshinori; edited by Ogawa Nobuo; music by Watanabe Toshiyuki; produced by Kitayama Hiroaki; released by Toho Company Ltd.

Starring Futami Kazuki (Taiki), Fujisawa Maya (Wakaba), Kobayashi Megumi (Moll), Yamaguchi Sayaka (Lora), Takahashi Hitomi (Mrs. Goto), Nashimoto Kenjirô (Mr. Goto), Tanaka Hiroko (Shiraishi) and Hano Aki (Belvera).

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Arthur 2: On the Rocks (1988, Bud Yorkin)

With the exception of Jill Eikenberry, all of the cast members from the original return for Arthur 2: On the Rocks. Cynthia Sikes replaces her. Eikenberry’s absence means she’s the only person who doesn’t embarrass herself. I’m sorry, did I say embarrass? I more meant humiliate.

Worse, director Yorkin and screenwriter Andy Breckman don’t just reserve the humiliation for the returning cast… the new cast members (like Kathy Bates, Paul Benedict and Sikes) humiliate themselves too. Watching Arthur 2, seeing actors who gave great performances in what are supposedly the same roles now giving terrible ones–Geraldine Fitzgerald is just awful, ditto for Stephen Elliott. Elliott’s the worse of the two, however.

As for leads Liza Minnelli and Dudley Moore–who were so precious and cute and good in the original–oh, they’re bad. Minnelli’s better, but only because Moore’s debasing himself in this one.

Besides a fifty-three year-old Moore no longer being adorable as an obnoxious drunk in the lead, the problem is the script. Yorkin’s direction is definitely lame, but Breckman’s script is atrocious. He tries to mimic the first film without actually developing the characters. There’s an unclear interim between the two films (it ranges from three to six years, never the actual eight) and it just goes to show how little thought Breckman puts into anything here.

Arthur 2: On the Rocks does have one big distinction–there’s nothing good about it. Even Burt Bacharach’s score is lousy. It’s a dismal, long, unfunny debacle.

Lassiter (1984, Robert Young)

Lassiter suffers from a definite lack of charisma. Not from leading man Tom Selleck, who looks a tad too tall to be a jewel thief, but from his leading ladies, Jane Seymour and Lauren Hutton. Seymour plays the girlfriend, which should give Lassiter an edge–if Seymour and Selleck had any chemistry together. Sadly, they don’t. Maybe it’s because Seymour’s two feet shorter than Selleck, maybe it’s because her performance is so tepid. As for Hutton… she’s laughable as a Nazi witch.

Her sidekick, Warren Clarke, however… he’s good.

All of Lassiter‘s supporting cast is outstanding–Joe Regalbuto, Ed Lauter, Bob Hoskins–so when Seymour’s off-screen and Hutton isn’t around, it’s a much better movie.

But Lassiter‘s other big problem–and one recasting can’t help–is the lack of story. Selleck’s jewel thief has to rob the German embassy in 1939 London. While the film beautifully creates the period (Peter Mullins’s production design is fantastic), there’s not a lot of story. David Taylor’s script tries to get a lot of kilometers out of Hoskins’s vicious thug of a cop, but it just doesn’t work. Hoskins is more of a danger than the Nazis and Lassiter‘s an attempt at an amiable thriller. There’s no place for noir elements whatsoever.

It’s hard to blame Young for that failing. His direction is never particularly impressive, but it’s never bad. It’s just a faulty project, but a mostly pleasant one.

Selleck’s good, Ken Thorne’s score is excellent. Lassiter‘s positively mediocre.

2/4★★

CREDITS

Directed by Robert Young; written by David Taylor; director of photography, Gilbert Taylor; edited by Benjamin A. Weissman; music by Ken Thorne; production designer, Peter Mullins; produced by Albert S. Ruddy; released by Warner Bros.

Starring Tom Selleck (Nick Lassiter), Jane Seymour (Sara Wells), Lauren Hutton (Kari Von Fursten), Bob Hoskins (Inspector John Becker), Joe Regalbuto (Peter Breeze), Ed Lauter (Smoke), Warren Clarke (Max Hofer), Edward Peel (Sgt. Allyce), Paul Antrim (Askew), Christopher Malcolm (Quaid) and Barrie Houghton (Eddie Lee).

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Woman Hater (1948, Terence Young)

Woman Hater is an incredible mess. It’s a romantic comedy about the titular character, played by Stewart Granger, who wants to “scientifically” prove women will throw themselves at any man. Or something along those lines.

Luckily, he’s a British royal, so he can engineer the entire thing–his victim is a French actress (Edwige Feuillère) looking for a secluded holiday.

Ninety-five percent of the film takes place on Granger’s estate, with he, Feuillère and their assorted servants. Maybe if the writing were good, this confined setting would work. But the writing is incredibly boring, something Young’s direction does nothing to help. Young can’t tell a joke and Hater is full of these screwball comedy moments and they fall painfully flat, each worse than the last.

While the film’s a complete failure, both Granger and Feuillère are excellent. They can’t sell the ludicrous plot but it doesn’t much matter. Granger’s charming, suggesting a layered character the script doesn’t provide. Feuillère’s actress is intelligent and deliberate. The script serves her a little better, but only because Granger’s character is so terribly written.

Mary Jerrold’s got a few scenes as Granger’s bewildered mother and she does well. As the principal servants, Ronald Squire and Jeanne De Casalis both lack comic timing. There is a funny subplot about British men being unable to resist French women, but it doesn’t spill over onto the main plot, which makes no sense.

Woman Hater‘s exceptionally overlong and sometimes unpleasant. It wastes Granger and Feuillère’s considerable abilities.

0/4ⓏⒺⓇⓄ

CREDITS

Directed by Terence Young; screenplay by Nicholas Phipps and Robert Westerby, based on a story by Alec Coppel; director of photography, André Thomas; edited by Vera Campbell; music by Lambert Williamson; produced by William Sistrom; released by General Film Distributors.

Starring Stewart Granger (Lord Terence Datchett), Edwige Feuillère (Colette Marly), Ronald Squire (Jameson), Jeanne De Casalis (Clair), Mary Jerrold (Lady Datchett), David Hutcheson (Robert), W.A. Kelly (Patrick), Georgina Cookson (Julia), Henry Edwards (Major), Stewart Rome (Colonel Weston) and Valentine Dyall (Spencer).

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Romance with a Double Bass (1974, Robert Young)

It’s hard to know where to start with Romance with a Double Bass. I suppose one could call it a comedy of errors, but the error in question is skinny dipping. First John Cleese, as a musician, goes skinny dipping and then Connie Booth, as the princess whose betrothal ball he is engaged to play at, goes skinny dipping.

Suffice to say, complications ensue.

The majority of Bass is Cleese and Booth running around naked, occasionally hidden by forest foliage, often not. It opens as a proto-“Fawlty Towers” with Cleese getting perturbed with people… but then becomes something quite different. While awkward and uncomfortable, Bass is never absurd and it’s actually quite charming.

Director Young has some nice shots, but for the most time he just lets Cleese do whatever he wants and it works. It’s mostly Cleese’s show. Even Booth eventually disappears, letting Cleese successfully take the spotlight.

Thunderball (1965, Terence Young)

Thunderball is real boring. The problem is two-fold. First, the opening is heavy. After the pre-title bit (which is goofy with the jetpack), it’s a pseudo-Hitchcock, with Connery off in a spa. He sees strange things going on and gradually romances his masseuse. Intercut with these scenes are the bad guys preparing to do their bad things. Terence Young’s a fantastic director–even when Thunderball is sleep-inducing–so all of these scenes, especially the ones in the spa, look great. They’re just not going anywhere.

When the movie finally starts–the spa adventures almost feels like a short story glued on to a three-act narrative–it’s mostly Connery romancing again. This time it’s Claudine Auger, who’s not very good. Luciana Paluzzi is far better as the bad girl. Adolfo Celi’s eye-patched villain is weak as well. The Bond regulars sparsely show up and Desmond Llewelyn’s scene is practically in the second half and is, of course, excellent, so it makes up for a lot.

But the other, far more damning problem, is the conclusion. It features a too silly for Bond closer and a missing scientist (the movie forgets about him). But those aspects aren’t really too influential. The end fails because, after making the viewer sit through a fifteen minute water ballet slash fight scene, all Young’s got for a conclusion is a speeding boat. Except the boat’s only speeding through sped up film. Thunderball uses the technique, which looks terrible, quite a few times… but the entire ending is running double-speed and it’s atrocious.

Then the end comes and ruins what would otherwise have been a boring but competent Bond outing.

Connery’s got some great one-liners in here, but most of them come at ludicrous plot points. For example, he’s got some witty line after he harpoons a bad guy to a tree. Auger’s not at all surprised (or horrified), which seems unlikely, since her character is supposed to be naive innocent.

One real interesting thing Thunderball does–and gets an incomplete on–is give Bond a team to work with. They’re only in a few scenes, but it’s interesting to see him work with other people. They should have been in a lot more.

0/4ⓏⒺⓇⓄ

CREDITS

Directed by Terence Young; screenplay by Richard Maibaum and John Hopkins, based on a screenplay by Jack Whittingham and a story by Kevin McClory, Whittingham and Ian Fleming; director of photography, Ted Moore; edited by Peter R. Hunt; music by John Barry; production designer, Ken Adam; produced by McClory, Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman; released by United Artists.

Starring Sean Connery (James Bond), Claudine Auger (Domino), Adolfo Celi (Emilio Largo), Luciana Paluzzi (Fiona Volpe), Rik Van Nutter (Felix Leiter), Guy Doleman (Count Lippe), Molly Peters (Patricia Fearing), Martine Beswick (Paula Caplan), Bernard Lee (M), Desmond Llewelyn (Q), Lois Maxwell (Miss Moneypenny), Roland Culver (Foreign Secretary), Earl Cameron (Pinder) and Paul Stassino (Major Francois Derval).

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Triple Cross (1966, Terence Young)

Looking up Triple Cross on IMDb (I look up everything on IMDb to fill out my little film-viewing record), I noticed the user comment. IMDb user comment’s are almost always terrible and, since I usually check a record after watching a film, amusing. This comment read, “Plummer’s no Connery.”

Well, obviously not. Christopher Plummer can act.

There are some comparisons to a James Bond film, of course–Plummer is constantly insubordinate and constantly bedding the ladies (though, much like the first three Connery Bond films, only three). I guess Terence Young also directed the first two Bonds as well. Triple Cross is not a Bond film simply because the supporting cast matters. You like them. You feel for them. I don’t know of a Bond film except (maybe) Goldeneye that succeeds in that regard.

Still, Triple Cross has a lot of problems. Young is a rather mediocre director and, for the first twenty minutes, I kept thinking that the British deserve not having a significant film contribution if Young is their idea of a “premier” filmmaker. Plummer is charming in the role, but there are few moments of actual depth. The most effective scene–between him and a Nazi general, played by Yul Brynner–is soon diminished–someone felt it necessary to bring Brynner back. Probably to fulfill his screen-time requirement….

Romy Schneider, who I know is famous, is good as one of Plummer’s romantic interests. There’s a lot of good acting in Triple Cross, but it’s usually for naught. I don’t know if the film is too honest in its historical portrayal or not enough. Probably the former. Films rarely suffer for taking dramatic license with history. The guy from Goldfinger, Goldfinger himself, is in it and does a good job too. World War II movies of Triple Cross‘s era peak with The Great Escape, but there are some other reasonable ones in there. They just weren’t made by Terence Young, apparently.

Still, I got the R2 DVD for like six dollars on eBay (from the UK, including shipping, which is quite a feat), so I’m happy enough. I don’t think Christopher Plummer has ever been bad and it’s nice to find a film where he’s the lead.