"You know what kind of plan never fails? No plan. You know why? If you make a plan, life never works out that way." That's the approximate translation for what could be "Parasite"'s tagline. I agree with the first answer. That's an axiom, not much to contradict there. I don't agree though with the second. And in the end the movie seems to agree with me ;) (at least indirectly.
An unemployed family in South Korea finds a way to move into the life of an "upper class" family - or to put it more directly: a family that has money. One by one, each of the poor family's members finds a job at the residence of the wealthy, job that's made available with the support of the previous employee: a private English teacher, a combo of a private art theacher + a children psychologist, a driver and a housekeeping lady. The small problem - each employee comes with fake recommendation and identity, and except the first of them the open position for the next to be hired is vacated through highly unorthodox means. Only that, as usual, karma fights back, and when each member of the family got a well paid job, there's a big surprise to show up.
And being a surprise let's not spoil it ;) I found already space left for more, although half the movie is built on this suprise, but there's still something missing. Or some of the development moves to quickly to properly conclude. There are also some other aspects that seemed a bit improper. Light spoiler: the script wants somehow to empathize with the four crooks, at least in the last part this being obvious, the characters being given some sort of positive aura. But comparing this with "Shoplifters", the Asian brother with a Cannes trophy, if there this approach worked, here it seemed a bit hard to movie over the first half. Despite my personal opinion that people can change, this wasn't very obvious here, so... Conclusion: I almost always found overrated the Cannes winning movies, and the exception that confirms the rule = "Shoplifters" passed. There are still many positive facts: the typical Korean dark humor, the attempt to shock, the actors, the score, etc. So it's a good movie, but not a very good one ;)
1. It's been a while since I'm trying to do a strict selection of what I watch - unfortunately time is limited, movies to pick from not. 2. "London Fields" was a guilty pleasure - where after watching I'd say it was more guilty and less pleasure. 3. IMDb gives it 4.3, Metacritic ranks at 16/100, and RottenTomatoes shows an epic 0% for this title, which should be more than enough as a red flag of "stay away!" - but Amber Heard has green eyes, and eventually I gave up resisting...
...in my defense: not before finding out that there is a director's cut, apparently a bit better than the initial version released a year ago. To be honest, I'm not sure what version I did watch, but from what I heard I tend to think it was the one which is at least a bit better edited. Meaning that we have some continuity in the action, which you can follow, compared to the chaotic development I heard it's present in the initial version. Now, about the contents of this action, oh well...
"London Fields" wants to be a neo-noir mystery set around a femme fatale: Nicola Six, who enter a bar some day, where she intersects her path with 3 guys, and has a vision of her own death at her 30th anniversary being cause by one of them. Only that she doesn't know who's the murderer... an American writer, temporarily moved in London, a drunk darts player, broke and heavily in debt, or a young banker, whose IQ seems similar with the degree of variation in his everyday life. In this context we have a love triangle getting shape (or better said a square), though without getting much sense. Or if there is one, the movie doesn't offer much reason to lose also extra time to look for it. The mystery part is at least partially shattered at a certain moment when you find out that one of the three guys doesn't have much to lose. The neo-noir part is also fading away quite fast due to the directing style, not having many scenes to support it. And still...
There is a certain action thread that the movie follows. Nicola struggles to get money from a guy to pay another one's debt, while the third is observing all of it. It's not very clear why she's doing that. As well as her reaction of accepting the cruel fate. Anyway, with the exception of Jim Sturgess, whose overacting is a bit too "over", the actors do a good job. Despite a gratuitous Razzie nomination, Amber Heard (with all the objectivity I can have) can act, and actually she does a good part here compared to others. There are also a couple scenes of what looks to be the "director's cut" that have some artistic sparkle in them in respect to editing/camera work. Shame though there are a couple more that cancel that. The major problem though is the story and the script - both having Martin Amis as author, who also signed a best-seller with the same name, 30 years ago.
As an objective conclusion, I don't know how the novel managed to gain success, but a bizarre mixture of romance with tons of darts thrown in, barely showing some clear ending, it's probably a good alternative only to a B series movie, instead of a sleeping pill. It can be worse though ("The Counselor" comes to my mind). At least here I didn't expect anything. Anyway, as another option of a mystery with a sort of a femme fatale central character, I reviewed a while ago "A Simple Favor". Much more clever, and overall much, much, much better.
Rating: 2 out of 5 ( objectively ;) - subjectively +0.5 :P )
I was thinking about which tagline would sound better: "from Road Trip to Joker" or "much ado about nothing", but both are bit unfair, although also both hold some truth.
Does it make any sense to do a synopsis of the story? Let's do like that: this is not a superhero universe movie. I don't even think it has DC Comics mentioned in the opening titles, which are very '70s - including the Warner Bros logo of that time. That was promising. At least for me, who I'm fed up with the most successful recipe to cash in from cinema in the last 15 years. Well... correction... -this does not seem- to be the same superhero universe as the latest Justice League or Avengers (oh yes, I've put them in the same sentence - not much difference). Of course we are set in Gotham, when Bruce Wayne was living his childhood and wasn't using his bat wings yet. Arthur Fleck is a lonely guy, with a neurological problem, periodically generating hysterical laughing, kept under control with plenty of medication, besides probably many other psychiatric issues. The guy lives with his mother, and has a lousy job as a clown hired on various events. Predictably, when it seems that things going wrong will go even more wrong, that happens. The job is lost, the social assistance also, the medication along it, as well as the self-control, followed by several murders and like that from Arthur Fleck we get to Joker. Well, I finally did a sort of synopsis... Probably not a very comprehensive one, but that wasn't my intention.
And it wasn't my intention because the movie is very very linear. That's the main issue. You have some little mystery, with a scent of soap-opera at some time concerning the abandoned mother who sent letters all her life to Thomas Wayne, the father of the future Batman, but it doesn't take long to have that mystery solved. And since this is pretty much the single digression from a line where you know at least 5 minutes ahead what's gonna happen, I'll refrain from more spoilers. Besides that, as a story at least, doesn't bring any surprise. And now, the taglines...
"From Road Trip to Joker": Todd Phillips has been directing almost only light comedies since year 2000. His association to Joker (no pun intended) was somehow surprising, and the critics rushed a bit on lowering the expectancy, at least until the title role was attributed to Joaquin Phoenix. Obviously neither "Road Trip", neither "Hangover", not even "Borat" where Phillips wrote the script, aren't the best references to guarantee a powerful drama as "Joker" wanted to be, and it actually is. So, that's why I was saying that the tagline sounds a bit unfair. If you've seen "War Dogs", the last movie made by Phillips before "Joker", despite all the comic line present there, you can feel already some drama nuances that are quite strong. Although the movie is heavily linear here, from the directing perspective, I highly doubt it could've been done much better. And the script for a "story" like this... well... I would even say that Phillips made wonders with the base material. From a story that can be summarized in three words = crazy guy snaps - he somehow managed to squeeze a sufficiently solid character (obviously the acting has its role here) to make some noise with it. And like that we're getting to...
"Much ado about nothing": Or what are the critics complaining of after release. The American at least, because in Europe the movie was better received. It's said that the movie is dangerous, that it's pushing to violence, that's pro-guns, and others. I'm curious how far can go the degree of filtering a movie through the social-political perspective. Well, I have the luxury of not being a resident of the American continent, where maybe the daily pressure of this factor might have went so far that distinguishing between a movie release and a political declaration is not done anymore. A movie is a movie, is art and should be first an escape from reality not a reference to it. I'll stick to that belief, although there are nuances. I doubt that Todd Phillips wanted to "positivise" the character, or to justify some violence, although it might seem so. A complex character is complex because it has its good and its bad, and here we have a solid construction that includes both, but that's something to appreciate not to criticize + after all, in the end, bottom line, what's left is a negative character. Even more, I doubt there was any intention for a movie associated with any left or right wing protests or movement. It doesn't even deserve debating. But well... For who's not smart enough and takes directly the idea of solving an issue with a gun, or connects what you can see in a fictive Gotham city and what's near you in the real life, then... well... it's indeed a movie that's harsh and strong enough to exert a direct influence. And that might make it dangerous indeed. But that depends on how smart is the viewer and doesn't throw any blame on the director ;)
I lost tracks on how many times I've put "The Kid Who Would Be King" on pause until finishing it. I guess it's a personal record of something like 6-7 times over 5 days. The funny part is that the first half of the movie, which I had to fragment a lot seemed much better than the second half. Long story short: we have a re-telling of the knights of the round table, where the role of Arthur is given to a boy in London who finds Excalibur in a stone forgotten near some construction yard, and from that moment is doomed to save the country. The threat: Morgana + a hord of undead who will take over at the next total eclipse = in 4 days.
The movie is somewhere between Narnia and Harry Potter. Meaning that the target audience is between 10-15 years old, but it's not that light, it works for older people too. I decided to watch it despite not having high hopes since it's been quite a while since I've seen a decent fantasy. In some parts I'd say it's actually more promising than the examples referenced before. The problem is that you feel that something's coming: either a part which is too much for kids, either on the border of getting ridiculous. And it comes indeed... and it goes away... and it comes again. Anyway... on the plus side:
- it's more fantasy than what the trailer suggests
- it has a top notch production design (really, I was surprised), decent VFX and some cool camera work
- the score has a fine touch of synth, barely present there, but still enough to make it count
- Patrick Stewart as the old Merlin
Unfortunately, those parts on the border of getting ridiculous are a bit too... cringe. But it might be a matter of taste = for all the rest it deserves a chance. And definitely for the age of 10-15 is quite ok.
Rating: 2.5 out of 5 ( seen from the 30+ perspective ;) )
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