Tag: Djimon Hounsou

What If…? (2021) s01e02 – What If… T’Challa Became a Star-Lord?

This episode of “What If” answers the burning question… what if Guardians of the Galaxy hadn’t been an attempt to reach the blandest white bread audience in the Marvel Universe? What if they’d hired an actually charming leading man instead of Chris Pratt? And, as I’ll never pass up an opportunity to diss the worst Chris, he doesn’t show up for this episode. Many other Guardians vets show. Including Josh Brolin—because the story affects Infinity War—Benicio Del Toro, who’s delightfully played as an anime villain, and Kurt Russell.

John Kani is back from Captain America III as Black Panther dad, who apparently doesn’t get killed off in this universe.

The episode opens with a rehash of the Guardians intro, but here Djimon Hounsou is very impressed with Chadwick Boseman, who has turned the intergalactic gang the Ravagers into a band of Merry Men (in the sort of most appropriate white way possible they identify Boseman’s character with Robin Hood instead of finding like a real African hero). Boseman can reason everyone down from violence, including Brolin, who doesn’t destroy half the galaxy instead argues academically about it like any good classical liberal.

It’s fun. Some of the action sequences are a little long, and since it’s a heist narrative, writer Matthew Chauncey apparently felt obligated to throw in some ruses and red herrings. Not to mention the ending steals the episode away from Boseman, which is a particular dig since they then dedicate it to him in the end credits. Probably could’ve made it work with him getting to finish it out and still had the suck-up to white male mediocrity.

Would it be fun without being Boseman? Probably but it definitely wouldn’t hit the same. Michael Rooker’s all right. Gillan’s good. Brolin’s fun. Hounsou’s hilarious. I wish he’d get to have so much fun in live-action sometime. And, again, Del Toro’s good. There’s also a not long enough Seth Green is Howard the Duck scene; it’s still unclear if the bit has any potential. It doesn’t seem like it’s ever going to be funny, but they’re trying to delay that evaluation.

As the narrating Watcher… Jeffrey Wright’s less annoying than last episode.

The strangest part of this one is the seeming admission it’d have made a better movie the first time around this way.

Push (2009, Paul McGuigan)

It’s understandable Push bombed at the box office. It’s hard to find a film so with much intelligence in the filmmaking, casting and acting applied to such a subpar script. Strangely, David Bourla’s script isn’t bad in regard to dialogue—there are some great exchanges between Dakota Fanning and Chris Evans—or in how it’s plotted—the narrative twists and turns resemble those in a heist movie. Where it fails is in creating an engaging setting—Push is a superhero movie where everyone has boring superpowers (it sort of feels like Summit wanted a teen superhero franchise to go along with Twilight).

Director McGuigan picked the film’s Hong Kong setting because he wanted something exotic a la Casablanca… and it does work. Fanning and Evans are basically Bogart and Rains here—a mildly abrasive, endearing chemistry. But maybe McGuigan worrying about bringing that sensibility to a superpowers movie just can’t truly work with the silly concept. In fact, McGuigan constantly works against the superpowers element.

I’d never seen Fanning in anything; I was shocked how good her performance is in this film. She and Evans are fantastic together. It’s distressing Bourla could write this great relationship between them, but couldn’t not be goofy when writing the script in general. Push shows why an established mythology is easier to adapt than to create.

Push might be better if you’re a fifteen year-old, albeit one who wants to see a superhero movie more like Casablanca than Iron Man.

Still, it’s okay.

Constantine (2005, Francis Lawrence)

Until the last minute, which introduces the idea Keanu Reeves is going to be narrating the film (which doesn’t start with him and has a number of scenes without him), I was going to say nice things about Constantine. I wasn’t even going to point out the son of the devil who’s coming to Earth is doing it through an illegal immigrant from Mexico. I wasn’t going to mention how Tilda Swinton seems to be the go to androgynous actor. I was even going to say something nice about the music, but the end credit music, which comes right after that lousy voiced over narration, it’s awful.

It’s definitely one of Reeves’s better performances. He never once comes across like Ted.

Rachel Weisz is terrible–I can’t believe she’s won an Oscar–but Shia LaBeouf is mildly amusing as the sidekick and Djimon Hounsou’s solid in a smaller part. Peter Stormare has a good cameo as Satan. Swinton’s awful.

Lawrence does a pretty good job directing, which I found odd since he did such an awful job with his Will Smith as a scientist movie–maybe that one was just too unbelievable. There’s some nice Panavision composition, but Lawrence shoots LA like it’s New York, which isn’t bad at all, but is peculiar–as compared to Sam Raimi, who shoots New York like LA.

The special effects are all right, the movie moves at a decent pace. It’s totally fine until the last minute, like I said, when it flops.

The Island (2005, Michael Bay)

I know The Island bombed but I can’t believe anyone thought it wouldn’t. It’s incredible such a large budget was given essentially to a future movie–it takes place in 2015 or something, it’s never clear, but there’s a lot of future stuff–and I had no idea it was a future movie. Bay’s got future cars and future trains and future motorcycles and he’s the worst person to do a future movie, because he’s incapable of wonderment. The Island plays out like Freejack on overdrive.

The plot is ripe for all sorts of metaphors–this island paradise, whatever–and the film ignores all of them. Instead it’s a wholly competent, completely unexciting summer action movie. Scarlett Johansson plays a twit well and Ewan McGregor’s a solid lead in a vapid role–it’d have been really funny if the pair had been cloned from their actors, who they then had to duke it out with.

Djimon Hounsou is wasted, as he always is, cast as the tough black guy with the accent. Sean Bean’s good as the villain, even if his dialogue is crappy. Steve Buscemi’s awesome in a small role; he really has fun, maybe more than anyone else, just because he’s not pretending about what kind of movie he’s making.

It’s really cool looking–the future designs and all–and Bay does a decent job. But when the music (a good score from Steve Jablonsky) comes up, it doesn’t matter what the movie is–Bay’s directing another commercial.

0/4ⓏⒺⓇⓄ

CREDITS

Directed by Michael Bay; screenplay by Caspian Tredwell-Owen, Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, based on a story by Tredwell-Owen; director of photography, Mauro Fiore; edited by Paul Rubell and Christian Wagner; music by Steve Jablonsky; production designer, Nigel Phelps; produced by Walter F. Parkes, Bay and Ian Bryce; released by DreamWorks Pictures.

Starring Ewan McGregor (Lincoln Six Echo), Scarlett Johansson (Jordan Two Delta), Djimon Hounsou (Albert Laurent), Sean Bean (Merrick), Steve Buscemi (McCord), Michael Clarke Duncan (Starkweather) and Ethan Phillips (Jones Echo Three).

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