Tag: Owen Wilson

Loki (2021) s01e06 – For All Time. Always.

“Loki” will return for season two. You find out at the end (of the credits). Or online. I tried to avoid “Loki” spoilers just because I wanted to be (relatively) surprised; would it be Wizard of Oz, would it be the purple one, would it just be Tom Hiddleston in makeup. I probably should’ve just spoiled it since it’s a nothing-burger. “Loki”'s been uneven—kind of like a Thor movie—but there have been highs. This episode doesn’t really have any highs. It doesn’t have any real lows either. Because it’s a nothing-burger. Tune in next season, and maybe there will be something important happening, though at this pace—and based on who they’ve got in play, cast-wise, for next season—it’ll be season four or five before anything really happens. And even then, they’ll presumably move it over to the movies.

The episode revolves around guest star Jonathan Majors, who monologues most of the episode. No reveals, just monologuing around reveals. He does a great job of it (you can tell he’s stage-trained). Unfortunately, he’s giving his monologue on what appears to be a refresh of the digital model for Doctor Strange’s house. Real boring. Though director Kate Herron is better at directing monologues than action, there’s another lousy fight scene this episode, this time with swords. Luckily it’s just filler to prepare for Hiddleston’s turn to monologue.

But “Loki” all of a sudden feels just like what it’s never supposed to feel like—a Marvel Netflix show, or “Agents of Shield,” something where the world can crash down, and no one notices because they’re not contractually obligated to appear. Especially given this episode opens with dialogue from the Marvel movies cut over the timelines expanding and contracting. But by the end, it seems far less like Marvel’s Doctor Who or Quantum Leap and a lot more like Sliders. A nothing-burger of a show.

There is no substantial material for Sophia Di Martino (though she hasn’t had good material for a couple of episodes now). Gugu Mbatha-Raw (dealing with when she betrayed Owen Wilson and Wunmi Mosaku) has a scene to remind she too will return next season, but as a scene, it’s dramatically inert. I kept waiting for show creator Michael Waldron to get another scripting credit after the first episode, and he’s back finally (co-credit with Eric Martin), and he really doesn’t do a good job.

What’s most amusing is the cliffhanger sets up a potentially fun second season ground situation only to immediately make it less fun and more narratively padded. “Loki”’s got a long way to go to prove it’s not utterly pointless. Because near as I can tell, everything from this season could be a five-minute recap at the beginning of next, and you wouldn’t miss anything.

Except remembering when Hiddleston was supposed to be a big movie star and isn’t. He’s just Loki.

Loki (2021) s01e05 – Journey Into Mystery

Journey Into Mystery is simultaneously the cheapest “Loki”—though not the special effects, the CGI composites are solid (for most of it; oh, and the fight scene is profoundly bad), but narratively speaking (it entirely cops out on last episode’s big moves)—and the best, because it guest stars Richard E. Grant as a Loki variant.

There are a bunch of Loki variants in the episode, which takes place at the end of time (sadly no cameos from John Simm or David Tenant). The end of time is apparently the planet Earth with a bunch of slightly aged trash on it. Working cars—even though the gas wouldn’t work but whatever—and then moss-encrusted buses. Basically Tom Cruise’s Oblivion movie or WALL-E to keep it in house. There are rival gangs of Lokis (Tom Hiddleston plays a couple of them but the majority are either named guest stars or dialogue-less extras) trying to survive a giant cloud demon. The end of time is where you go after the TVA prunes you from existence and then the giant cloud demon eats you. Giant cloud demon does not eat, for example, cars, buses, bunkers, or battleships. Just the little people populating them.

Sadly I think next episode is going to explain it all and I’m curious if my prediction’s going to hold.

Anyway. So while Grant, the couple Hiddlestons, kid Loki Jack Veal, and warrior Loki Deobia Oparei try to survive everyone betraying everyone else because they’re Lokis, Sophia Di Martino is busy maybe teaming up with Gugu Mbatha-Raw to figure out the big secret after last episode’s reveals. They’re delaying the explanation—Mbatha-Raw might be a villain (and, even with Tom Kauffman’s profoundly insipid writing, a good one) but she wants to know how it all works too. Can’t she and Di Martino be friends long enough to figure it out?

Di Martino doesn’t really get anything to do in the episode, playing sidekick to various Lokis and surprise returning cast members; though given Kauffman’s dialogue it’s probably for the best. There’s a decent farewell scene for a bunch of people, but it too will probably get invalidated in the finale. Wunmi Mosaku is back for a single scene and gets the absolute worst writing. The show wasted her worse than anyone else.

Even with the bad writing, the complete flop of a silly fight scene (Joel Schumacher did them better), and the narrative cop outs, Journey is probably the most entertaining episode. Because Richard E. Grant’s in it in what appears to be a Loki costume rental from 1987 and he’s wonderful.

There’s also an alligator Loki, which is apparently comics canon accurate but not worth the Google. Cute as hell though.

Also—no spoilers—but Kauffman’s even worse at character motivations than dialogue and his dialogue is tripe. The first act of the episode is everyone acting in absurd ways just to gin up a plot.

But that alligator’s cute as hell. And funny.

And Richard E. Grant.

Loki (2021) s01e04 – The Nexus Event

Lots happens this episode. It’s “the episode where fill in the blank happens” then happens again. Then happens again. Then maybe happens again. But probably not another time because they don’t actually show Tom Hiddleston and Sophia Di Martino making out—they’re time line variants of the same entity (you know, “Loki”) but Di Martino’s from a time line where the entity is born female. For some reason the mysterious Time Lords want Loki to be a boy.

Plus Di Martino has told Hiddleston secrets he can use to improve his situation with Owen Wilson, should that need ever arise. And we also find out guard Wunmi Mosaku (I didn’t think she’d be back but thank goodness because she’s so good) wants to question Di Martino privately about some of those secrets. And we find out there’s some history between Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Di Martino. Plus conspiracies. And robots. And exploding planets.

There’s lots.

It’s really good Owen Wilson. Like, good enough I got wistful thinking about him actually doing a part instead of a stunt cast, actually having direction, actually having a script. They could even do it with Hiddleston; it’s that old time Owen Wilson magic. Or at least more of it than “Loki” has ever shown before.

Mbatha-Raw turns out to be very, very good after seeming like another stunt cast.

Di Martino barely has anything to do this episode. She’s good. Same for Hiddleston, though he does have some stuff to do and it’s not great, but then the rest of the time he’s pretty good. It evens out. Pointless cameo from Jaimie Alexander but it’s at least funny.

Kate Herron’s direction is wanting. There’s only so much to do with the script—Eric Martin gets the credit and it’s one big melodramatic beat after another, with no time for reflection or supporting cast in between. The secrets behind Marvel Disney+ show budgets would reveal a lot about the potential for the shows.

But the special effects—the composites—are terrible in this episode. Interstellar CGI should be better than the opening titles for “Third Rock from the Sun.” And then the big fight scene. It’s confusing, plodding, and bad.

The cliffhanger’s a big twist after a bunch of interesting enough reveals. I feel like if you’re this many episodes into “Loki”… you’re stuck finishing it but… it’ll either be entertaining and dumb or just dumb. With the cast, seems like the former.

Loki (2021) s01e02 – The Variant

I have a list of the things I don’t like about “Loki” after the second episode. The show isn’t a “Doctor Who” riff, but it wants to use whole “Who” devices to get certain jobs done. Certain jobs the MCU might want done if actors are going to keep aging and maybe get sick of playing parts. It feels pretty craven, which would be impressive if they were having more fun with it.

“Loki” is not fun. It’s dreary, particularly with its Stallone Judge Dredd meets green-lighted Brazil production design (last time I thought it might have some Kirby influences—and it still might—but it just ends up looking like CGI Stallone Judge Dredd). Tom Hiddleston and Owen Wilson are both competent enough actors they can feign rapport, but they don’t actually have any. Hiddleston going from renegade thousands of years old Asgardian trickster god to new guy at the boring, albeit fantastic day job could be a narrative hook, except it’s all clearly filler to get Hiddleston to the next set piece.

Only “Loki”’s idea of set pieces is Hiddleston monologuing in boring locations (an empty supervillain warehouse—sorry, sorry, tent—in a Renaissance Faire) while Wilson makes confused faces at him. Except about halfway through the episode, Hiddleston figures out something about the case they’re on and the good guys are finally able to get a jump on the bad guy.

Of course, calling “Loki”’s TVA (Time Variance Authority, Timecop but worse attitude than Van Damme and no leg splits) agents the good guys is a stretch. They’re even more apathetic than Hiddleston plays it.

Now, “Loki” is a very desperate mix of a lot of things—“Legends of Tomorrow,” “Doctor Who,” “Westworld,” whatever show where the female boss has a thing with her troublesome male subordinate who’s fifteen years older than her (only Gugu Mbatha-Raw looks younger than thirty-eight and Wilson looks closer to mid-to-late fifties trying hard not early fifties)—and I’m trying to give it a chance. But it’s hard to get enthusiastic about Kate Herron’s direction because she’s boring. And the CGI composites are terrible so every time they go somewhere (except the Renaissance Faire) it’s Wilson and Hiddleston acting in front of obvious green screens.

The show desperately needs some slack and doesn’t do anything to get any.

Maybe if Hiddleston were giving some phenomenal performance, but it’s not even a good part. It’s Hiddleston in a bureaucracy—an all human, all English speaking guardians of the universe bureaucracy. It’s way too functional.

I mean, maybe it’ll be how Kang gets introduced and, yay, for long-form baton-passing but… “Loki”’s a slog with low middling special effects and really annoying music from Natalie Holt.

Loki (2021) s01e01 – Glorious Purpose

So when Tom Hiddleston signed up for Thor, I can’t remember if former costar and movie director Kenneth Branagh convinced him to do it or didn’t think he should do it. Hiddleston was a star on the rise and the idea was you’d do your Marvel movie for scale plus and then the resulting roles would make you the mega-stars. Hiddleston could even do Oscar bait.

Fast forward ten years and neither Thor nor Hiddleston’s non-Thor career ended up shattering the cosmos. Plus Hiddleston died. Though he came back in the next movie. And “Loki” is the sequel to that movie, Avengers: Endgame, while also kind of a sequel to The Avengers, because Hiddleston’s playing the 2012 version of the character. It’s barely confusing because they have Hiddleston find out the truth by the end of the episode. So it’s also kind of Thor 2 for a second, like a better one, with the same big death because they recycle it here to give Hiddleston the exact same character development as he had before.

It’s a low okay episode. Like… no heavy lifting for anyone involved, including the writer (Michael Waldron) because he gets to do time travel stuff but nothing original. If “Loki” is based on a Marvel Comics thing—he’s working for the Time Variance Alliance or something—TVA—it’s a newer comic thing. Or old and obscure. But it seems like it’d be newer, because it uses so much time travel stuff from other media

And it’s fine. Recycled time travel tropes are part of the genre.

Though it does end up feeling like there’s only one more layer until the Fantastic Four is meeting a CGI Jack Kirby. Deep cut, just means they’re going really meta here. Because it lets Hiddleston be an amusing weasel. They even rush the rest of Hiddleston’s character development, more or less getting him to Infinity War mindset. All the flashbacks and flash forwards come during Hiddleston’s job interview at the TVA. Time traveling detective Owen Wilson, who flirts with lady judge Gugu Mbatha-Raw and bickers with tough lady guard Wunmi Mosaku, thinks Hiddleston’ll make a great agent.

Wilson’s laidback thing still works and grates nicely against Hiddleston’s petulant god thing. I’d say for at least a third of the episode, you can watch it for Wilson alone. The curiosity wears thin (along with Waldron’s plotting), but he’s really fun for a while.

Mbatha-Raw’s in a scene. She’ll be back later. Mosaku’s good, but it’s so far not a good part. She’s Hiddleston’s foil, someone he can torture for kicks and it not affect his appeal, which is… a weird flex and might become a problematic one.

There’s a big Jurassic Park 1 nod, makes you wonder who’s the fan.

“Loki”’s giving itself a really low bar. It’s the safest thing Marvel and Disney+ have done so far, but by a whole lot.

They also have the chance to legitimize “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” and then don’t do it, which is sort of likably petty.

Bottle Rocket (1996, Wes Anderson)

Bottle Rocket is such a masterpiece of narrative design, it eschews drawing any attention to that design. Somehow Anderson and Owen Wilson manage to tell a satisfactory long short film and affix an additional thirty minute postscript to the whole thing.

It’s like a movie and a sequel all in ninety minutes. Or maybe they’re just setting up the train set for the first hour and loosing the trains for the last thirty minutes. It’s hard to say–Anderson employs obvious but unspoken connections and complexities. Even though the film is never simple, he refuses to make anything obtuse. The viewer just has to pay attention.

Like a metaphor for protagonist Luke Wilson’s romance with Lumi Cavazos. He’s ostensibly on the run from a book store hold-up and she’s a housekeeper at the motel where he hides out. Cavazos doesn’t speak English, Luke Wilson doesn’t speak Spanish. The script never goes for easy jokes; their romance is the calm. Even though it involves crime and occasional violence, Bottle Rocket isn’t dangerous. But through the performances and script’s delicate, deliberate treatment of the romance, the importance of a calming factor for Luke Wilson’s peculiarly troubled soul becomes clear.

Offsetting that Wilson is Owen Wilson as his frantic best friend. He gets all the fun stuff, only his performance can’t be easy. Bottle Rocket wouldn’t work if it were too fun or too silly. It’s absurd, but every moment’s real.

Great support from Robert Musgrave, awesome editing from David Moritz.

Bottle Rocket’s magnificent.

The Radiator Springs 500½ (2014, Rob Gibbs and Scott Morse)

There's some charm to The Radiator Springs 500½, but nowhere near enough. There are hints of good ideas–like a Western showdown motif at the beginning–and some of the failed gags should have worked–a car who comes along to do the cymbals after a pun. Oh, right, it's a Cars spin-off cartoon short. Forget to mention that part.

Anyway, there's nothing cohesive about it. Half the short is the good car (voiced by Owen Wilson, who must have been busy because he has almost no lines) racing against these bad cars who have no respect for the town. Then the town cars are on this idyllic anniversary drive.

There's an effective junk yard sequence towards the end, but otherwise it's tepid and without any excitement. Springs's greatest stylistic influence appears to be video game cut scenes. Whoop-de-doo.

It might get points for being harmless, but why give points for being harmless?

1/3Not Recommended

CREDITS

Directed by Rob Gibbs and Scott Morse; written by John Lasseter, Jeremy Lasky and Gibbs; edited by Torbin Xan Bullock; music by Mark Mothersbaugh; production designer, Anthony Christov; produced by Mary Alice Drumm; released by Walt Disney Pictures.

Starring Owen Wilson (Lightning McQueen), Larry the Cable Guy (Mater), Steve Purcell (Sandy Dunes), John Cygan (Idle Threat), Jess Harnell (Blue Grit), Bonnie Hunt (Sally Carrera), Cheech Marin (Ramone) and Danny Mann (Shifty Sidewinder).

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Meet the Parents (2000, Jay Roach)

Meet the Parents requires an extraordinary suspension of disbelief. It’s an absurdist comedy, but the presence of Robert De Niro and–maybe even more so–Blythe Danner imply Parents is based in some kind of reality.

So the simplest thing–believing Teri Polo could be a well-adjusted adult after growing up with De Niro as a father–becomes Parents’s first hurdle. She and Ben Stiller have only the mildest chemistry and it only goes downhill as the film gets more absurd (and more funny).

Director Roach isn’t capable enough to make that romance, which should be the primary focus of Parents narratively, work, so he concentrates on De Niro and Stiller being funny together. It works. Stiller and De Niro are very funny together. While Stiller actually gives a good performance, De Niro’s is problematic. His best moments are either with Danner or Stiller. When De Niro has to play off Owen Wilson, it feels wrong, like De Niro’s doing a “Saturday Night Live” sketch mocking the film.

Roach’s inabilities carry over into the technical aspects as well. He can’t decide how realistic he wants Parents to play–the film opens with a series of home video shots and there’s some Steadicam later on, but it’s mostly static. It doesn’t necessarily need to choose, but it’s clear Roach is simply incapable of making the decision.

Towards the end, Parents gets very long. It can’t handle with the return to sensibly behaving characters. The acting helps get it through.

2/4★★

CREDITS

Directed by Jay Roach; screenplay by Jim Herzfeld and John Hamburg, based on a story by Greg Glienna and Mary Ruth Clarke; director of photography, Peter James; edited by Greg Hayden and Jon Poll; music by Randy Newman; production designer, Rusty Smith; produced by Robert De Niro, Roach, Jane Rosenthal and Nancy Tenenbaum; released by Universal Pictures.

Starring Robert De Niro (Jack Byrnes), Ben Stiller (Greg Focker), Teri Polo (Pam Byrnes), Blythe Danner (Dina Byrnes), James Rebhorn (Dr. Larry Banks), Jon Abrahams (Denny Byrnes), Phyllis George (Linda Banks), Kali Rocha (Atlantic American Flight Attendant), Thomas McCarthy (Dr. Bob Banks), Nicole DeHuff (Deborah Byrnes) and Owen Wilson (Kevin Rawley).

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Midnight in Paris (2011, Woody Allen)

Midnight in Paris is one of Allen’s single stroke films. There are some painters in it, so using the paint stroke metaphor works rather nicely. The film’s about one thing; it’s about Owen Wilson’s Hollywood screenwriter who wants to be a novelist learning to take an active role in his life. There’s a lot going on around him—a whole lot, but it slowly becomes clear that one aspect is the salient one.

In the film, Allen continues to search for his perfect stand-in and Wilson does a good job. It’s hard to say how much of Wilson’s personal situation plays into the perception of him as mildly tragic, though it’s always present. Probably doesn’t hurt he wrote some great scripts too.

The film has its quietly profound moments, nothing too neon. There are a lot of literary references, some art ones, a couple film ones. It helps if one knows them. Allen is enjoying himself and not worrying too much about anything else. The subject matter is one he’s interested in and doesn’t care if the audience can’t keep up. It’s closer to his absurdist seventies comedies than anything has been for a while in that way.

And he gets an absolutely amazing performance from Michael Sheen. Also great is Adrien Brody in his one scene.

Marion Cotillard, Kathy Bates and Corey Stoll are all good. Rachel McAdams has too little to do, but does it well.

With Darius Khondji’s luscious photography, it’s a wondrously self-indulgent feast.

4/4★★★★

CREDITS

Written and directed by Woody Allen; director of photography, Darius Khondji; edited by Alisa Lepselter; production designer, Anne Seibel; produced by Letty Aronson, Jaume Roures and Stephen Tenenbaum; released by Sony Pictures Classics.

Starring Owen Wilson (Gil), Rachel McAdams (Inez), Marion Cotillard (Adriana), Michael Sheen (Paul), Corey Stoll (Hemingway), Kurt Fuller (John), Mimi Kennedy (Helen), Carla Bruni (Museum Guide), Kathy Bates (Gertrude Stein), Tom Hiddleston (Scott), Alison Pill (Zelda), Marcial Di Fonzo Bo (Pablo) and Adrien Brody (Dali).

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Bottle Rocket (1994, Wes Anderson)

It’s sort of hard to differentiate this Bottle Rocket from the subsequent feature. It looks like Owen Wilson and Wes Anderson had been working on parts of the script for a while (a handful of scenes appear verbatim in the feature) and, in a lot of ways, the short plays like an extended trailer.

As a director, Anderson has some of his distinctive framing—particularly in the two shots with conversation—but he doesn’t have a handle on how to film motion. Only at the end does he get it. The rest of the time, it’s problematic.

Owen Wilson is good—he has the character down already—but Luke has some problems. It’s like he hadn’t gotten rid of his accent yet and hadn’t decided if he was going to. Still, he’s fine. Robert Musgrave is good.

Anderson’s got his music choices down already… Bottle Rocket’s interesting, but clearly incomplete.