THE HAPPY PRINCE (2018)

It is safe to say that The Happy Prince was a pet passion project for Rupert Everett. The film was written, directed, and stars Everett in the lead role, and had so little support, that the decade-long mission to get funding had enough content to spawn its own documentary (see Rupert Everett: Born to be Wilde).

The film is a biographical story that follows the final years of Oscar Wilde's life following his release from prison where he had been sentenced to two years of hard labour, charged with homosexuality. The film starts on Wilde's deathbed and is set up in a non-linear fashion, jumping between multiple timelines through flashbacks. This montage of events does become quite complicated and can be confusing if the viewer is not fully invested in the story; especially as there really is no specific story arc.

The film follows a man's fall from grace; from celebrityhood to exile. This portrayal of Wilde is rather heavy and unflinching, with a strong focus on his homosexuality, and self-indulgent lifestyle at his own detriment. A single line of dialogue spoken by Everett's Wilde encapsulates what to expect from the film; "I am my own Judas". Not pulling any punches, The Happy Prince is a powerful film, that shows the near pendulous manner of Oscar Wilde's life swinging between rapturously mirthful moments and disease & despondence. Despite the content of the film being based in the late 1800s, there are still many parallels to modern day, such as how the public vilify celebrities.

Visually, the film is nicely shot, using real locations to minimise the presence of special effects, creating a genuine atmosphere. There are some scenes that feel shoehorned in for the sake of art and metaphor, with no real effect on the story, but otherwise, the film feels authentic. Camera shots are not overly steady, and the raw look to it fits well with the time.

With no real story arc and no redemption, this portrayal of Oscar Wilde's final days is a dark and dreary viewing. Very slow at times, the muddled non-linear format makes it difficult to get properly invested in the characters. Attempts are made to balance jovial moments with the heavier content, but overall the film is not something that lends itself to multiple viewings. 

COLD PURSUIT (2019)

What exactly is black comedy? Supposedly is is dark comedy or gallows humour that makes light of a subject matter that generally taboo, or painful to discuss. Is this really the correct category for Cold Pursuit? An attempt was certainly made, but I can't help but think it should have just been a straight action flick. It certainly isn't a thriller either.

Simply put, this could near enough be a reimagining of the Taken franchise, where Liam Neeson's character was unable to save his child, and instead goes on a "rampage" of vengeance. To be fair, Cold Pursuit, starts off quite well. It's light in the character development side of things in relation of Liam Neeson's character, but the once he's in the revenge frame of mind, the remainder of the first act is pretty damn good. Showcasing some pretty realistic fight scenes, we see the logistics of carrying weapons, the fatigue that can occur while fighting, and are given a pretty good method for disposing of bodies.

However, in the second act of the film, it loses direction as Neeson is absent for most of it, instead focusing on an array of side characters that fail to really engage the audience. The acting is either over-the-top and near-cartoonish, or just absent far beyond stoicism. None of the characters feel legitimate, and theirconnections are so poorly formed that I often forget how the characters were introduced into the story. 

Liam Neeson was the only saving grace in this film, and he shone while on the screen, especially his parts with Viking's son. Strangely, this movie is near enough an exact replica of director Hans Petter Moland's 2014 Norwegian film In Order of Disappearance. Exact same plot, shot for shot, but in English this time. 

Perhaps due to the fact that the film is near anough an exact remake of a Norwegian film with different actors, the comedic value did not come through. There were the odd deaths that occurred off screen and the title card that announced their death got a couple of laughs, but the routine was overused or overextended, as was much the case with the other gags. there were a few chuckles in the theatre, so perhaps it may have just been an issue of the timing that didn't sit right with me. In comedy, timing is everything.

After some poor pacing in the second act that makes the film feel like it is dragging we finally get to the climax, which has a few nice set-pieces that really make use of Neeson's role as a snowplow driver, but otherwise is anti-climactic and doesn't have a strong conclusion. 

Overall, the film has some nice cinematography, and some reasonable action pieces. But struggles with unnecessary characters, poor pacing, and a lack of a strong payoff in the end. They needed to pick a direction, either amping up the comedy, or removing it completely. The inconsistent tone just ruins this film.

DEAR EX (2018)

Dear Ex is an award-winning Taiwanese movie directed by Mag Hsu and Hsu Chih-yen. Winning all four categories it was nominated for at the 20th Taipei Film Awards (Taiwanese specific), and winning three of the 6 nominations for the 55th Golden Horse Awards (Chinese Language specific), this was likely to be an interesting film.

The film starts off with a boy whose mother has found out that her late husband had left his insurance payout to a stranger; a male lover. The mother (Lui San Lian, portrayed by Hsieh Ying-hsuan) bring her son (Song Zheng Yuan, portrayed by Chen Ru-shan) to the house of the stranger (Ah Jie, portrayed by Roy Chiu) to try and guilt him into giving the money back, unknowingly providing the son the ability to find out himself who was truly the "bad guy" in this scenario. 

The film follows young Song Zheng Yuan, as he battles against his controlling mother--who he sees as money-hungry--and against the "manstress"--who seems apathetic of the whole matter. Being the stubborn youth trapped in emotional turmoil, every action seems to have a negative consequence, but it builds the development of this trio of characters organically. The film is so genuine in its relationships that it is almost irritating and frustrating to begin with, with all characters being overly emotional (or overly unemotional, as the case may be). It all feels over-the-top, yet as the story progresses and you see the history of the characters unfolding, their behaviour becomes more and more understandable and relatable. 

The film mixes a few light-hearted moments with some heavy topics, and a youthful narrative from time to time, to give it a feeling not dissimilar to Jason Reitman's 2007 film, Juno. As the film is not in English, however, subtitles are necessary and are quite fast-paced with the speed at which these emotional characters speak. When there are multiple dialogue sources, and no way to know who is saying what, the subtitles can be a little confusing from time to time. An infrequent issue though.

The film's pacing is a little slow at times, but the measured rate at which the flashbacks are drip-fed to the audience keeps the intrigue as we try to determine in what direction the film will go. 

Overall, Dear Ex is far more along the drama lines than comedy, but it provides an interesting look at a split family from a different cultural perspective; made even more poignant considering voters in Taiwan have recently rejected same-sex marriage in a referendum.

ESCAPE ROOM (2019)

Escape Room starts off pretty strongly, considering what it is. Six people inadvertently joining a high-stakes escape room game, forced to solve the puzzle to escape before they run out of time and are killed. This is effectively a Saw film with a new antagonist, bigger budget, and a targeted-at-youth rating of M(?).

Escape rooms are quite a popular recreational activity at the moment, even so, it is still quite interesting to see these characters taking part of their own free will. Usually, the rooms will follow a theme, and this is the case in Escape Room; each room with a vastly different look and feel to it. As far as the set-pieces go, these rooms are very well done. A lot of creativity goes into the planning of each space, and each scene makes great use of differing shots or colour grading to change how that room feels. Whether it be medium range shots with a very low saturation tinged with blue, to make the viewer feel colder and in a larger space compared to close up shots in a fiery red room which creates a sense of claustrophobia.

The characters themselves have minimal development and unfortunately spoils itself by choosing to focus on only developing certain characters at the beginning. Like watching an episode of American Idol, you know someone is going to be significant when they go off on a tangent about the person's life story. Rather one-dimensional characters, none of them are really all that likeable. Out of the six that are taking part, only two of the characters are really actively participating while the rest are just acting disrespectfully towards those trying to help. Which looking at the setup of the film does make sense, as these people are doing it for a cash prize--not for fun--but it is still rather peculiar to watch a group of frustratingly annoying characters who seem to instantly hate each other doing an escape room together.

As the personalities of the characters are so one-sided, you can't really blame the actors that were cast as they had little to work with. Taylor Russell is an unlikely lead protagonist, having no qualities that would make her a great leader. Deborah Ann Woll (who I absolutely loved in the Netflix Daredevil and Punisher series) is probably the strongest character there, using a lot of dialogue-free acting, and being the closest to a likeable character of the bunch. Jat Ellis, Tyler Labine, Nik Dodani, and Logan Miller are all rather forgettable.

It is unfortunate because the film starts off really well. The puzzles--while rather simple for a deathtrap--are still quite creative and fun. It isn't too noticeable, there is a fair amount of monologuing that seems to have been added after the fact, where the characters are constantly talking to themselves (great teamwork, guys) as they explain out loud their thought processes. A rather clear example of the studio not trusting the audience to be able to figure out the puzzles themselves, but overall it is all edited in a reasonably organic way. The flashbacks provide reasonable exposition but do feel like they couldn't figure out where to actually put them in.

Once they get to the fourth room, that is when the film takes a turn. It's as if the writers had no idea how to end the movie, and instead were pulling out every stop to try and ensure a sequel could follow from it. The film tries to complicate itself too much, adding in hints throughout that don't get any kind of payoff by the end, and just going completely off the rails, throwing in unnecessary scenes and making opposing changes to the personality traits of the protagonist. It changes from a logistically impossible, but fun mystery movie, into a poorly written action sequence.

There are potentially 3 whole scenes that were tacked on at the end that could have been removed completely, and actually made the film so much better. Removing all of the unnecessary baggage in order to push a sequel, just feels cheap, and ruined what was actually quite a fun film.

I'm not sure who the studio was really aiming this film at. I would have loved the M rating to have been upgraded to an R rating and actually allow some stronger death scenes to occur. The whole "look away at the last moment" thing really takes away from the emotional impact, especially when your characters instantly recover from anything that had occurred in the previous room. It all reduces the tension (which Escape Room still manages to provide), fear and consequence of action.

Overall, I enjoyed the film up until the final act. It is a bit like a less intelligent version of The Belko Experiment, and a less gory edition of Saw, with a bit of Cube thrown in for good measure. The creative setpieces are the appeal of the film, and as long as you are willing to have a laugh afterwards about how much the ending sucked, you'll come away with a positive experience.

THE HATE U GIVE (2018)

The Hate U Give is an intriguing story based on a young adult novel by Angie Thomas, the screenplay was adapted by Audrey Wells (who unfortunately passed away from cancer the day before the film's release). While the film provides another look at racism in a modern context, I can't help but feel that the story--which was originally written to relate to the black youths--has been changed to instead cater towards a whiter audience.

The film follows Starr Carter (portrayed by Amandla Stenberg) who live in "the hood" but goes to a more upper class (read: white) school in order to have the education to be able to escape the hood. After her childhood friend is shot dead during a routine traffic stop, the balance in her life is thrown into wack.

The Hate U Give does a really good job at showing the perspectives of certain members of the caucasian community. The sense of superiority, the youths using certain slang to appear cool, but also the innate sense of fear that they feel towards the black ethnicities. It builds this world that closely mirrors what has been occuring in the United States. A prejudiced society that is still looking over its shoulder long after slavery has ended. As such the film is certainly good at portraying the white policeman as the victim, despite him being the one that has ended another person's life.

Where the film is more hit-and-miss, is its portrayal of the black communities. While there is definitely a strong emotional story--a result of a fantastic acting performance from Stenberg--much of the remainder of the cast are written as rather one-dimensional stereotypes. The lack of development in these supporting characters on the black side, makes them less relatable, and soils the aim of the story. It does still bring many conversations and ideas to light that the more privileged society may not be aware of. The opening scene for example talking about how to act during a traffic stop really highlights the small things that are taken for granted when we have lighter skin.

The film is well shot, and has some great colour grading, showing the clear separation between Starr and Starr 2.0, with the warmer, high saturated colour scheme in the hood scenes, and a more neutered, blue filter in the highschool scenes. 

I enjoy films that bring racism to the forefront, and with racism and prejudices formed mainly from stereotypes and false assumptions, I would have loved to have seen more fleshed out characters and a much less biased portrayal of the black community. That being said, The Hate U Give still has a function, and it serves as a great introduction to the topic of covert racism and microaggressions in a manner that doesn't feel like an attack.

There are some great themes on responsibilities, family, and the notion that our actions form the future actions of our children. A good beginner film for those that want to open up discourse about racism, but The Hate U Give only goes skin deep.

MANIKARNIKA: THE QUEEN OF JHANSI (2019)

I went into this film with no idea what to expect. I know nothing on the story of Manikarnika, I simply decided to check out the film as it started right as the previous film I was watching finished. Considering I was going into a two and a half hour long film at 11:20pm after a week of physical work, I wasn't expecting this film to really keep me engaged. Boy, was I wrong! I emerged at nearly 2am, full of energy and praises.

The film starts off with a literal 5 to 10 minutes of "special thanks" to the partners, which was tiresome and excessive, especially when one is already exhausted, but it didn't take long for the film to grab me once it started. Based on a true story (with a few bits tweaked for the sake of dramatic effect) I was intrigued to watch the leading lady, Kangana Ranaut (who portrays Manikarnika) instantly establishing herself as a strong, female character. The film rises and falls on Ranaut's acting ability, as she is the focus of 98% of the scenes. Due to this focus of Ranaut, the supporting characters are underdeveloped, but the film doesn't suffer much because of it.

For those not in the know, the story follows this woman who was raised as a warrior, marries the King of Jhansi, and fights for India's independence against the British Army. Stylistically, Manikarnika: Queen of Jhansi is like watching a Lord of the Rings film, that ends in a climax that looks heavily influenced by Zack Snyder's 300. It constantly builds and builds throughout the film, increasing emotional engagement as well as increasing in scale and action. All helped by a brilliant musical score by Shankaar-Ehsaan-Loy.

Kangana Ranaut is one hell of a woman. She transitions through so many phases throughout the films extensive runtime; wild and carefree as a single woman, a serious and loving wife, a devoted mother, a tactical and uncompromising Queen, and the intense, rabid warrior. Her performance is largely done not with her dialogue, but through her unblinking stare, and her graceful movements, and yet she still has a number of moving speeches.

CGI is inconsistent, to be fair, some portions appear very realistic, but then other scenes look like the frame-rate has dropped considerably, or the lighting doesn't quite match the rest of the shot. But again, you are so invested in the story that slightly lower graphics are a non-issue. Lush and lavish visual environments and costumes are gorgeous, and the dance numbers are enjoyable (this is, after all, a Bollywood film).

Kudos need to be given to the director and writers. They have put forth a brilliant character in Manikarnika; strong, but still not so perfect that she could be described as a Mary Sue. Manikarnika is an exceptionally well-written feminist role model. The character is quite well developed, though the film doesn't go much beyond what is already commonly known about the historical figure. This is juxtaposed by the British characters who are portrayed as one-dimensional manipulative and sadistic characters. Not dissimilar to how Nazi Germany is portrayed in war films, the film spends no time looking at why the British act as they do, it simply pushes its message of patriotism and is very successful.

Almost feeling like an original story for a superhero, Manikarnika: Queen of Jhansi is an action-packed epic story. Game of Thrones meets Lord of the Rings meets 300, I absolutely loved this film. That is not a word that I use often to describe how I feel about a film. But when a foreign film can keep me invested for two and a half hours in the middle of the night (especially when I have to read subtitles), make me feel patriotic towards someone else's country, and have me leaving the theatre wanting more, I know I have seen something special.

This is easily my second favourite film of the year so far. It caters to my love of strong female characters, strong action scenes, and emotional character development. I don't care if it is only screening in the middle of the night. You must see this film.

VELVET BUZZSAW (2019)

Velvet Buzzsaw is another example of a film that fails to live up to the promises and tone of the trailer. This seems to be a common issue with Netflix, where they try to use their trailer to exaggerate the style of the film to draw in the audiences as they do not market through the same channels as big Hollywood films. The trailer gives the vibe of an intense thriller, yet Velvet Buzzsaw fails to bring about a truly strong sense of tension or suspense.

The premise is interesting but isn't properly developed. Starting off as a satirical look at the high-end art industry of Los Angeles, it devolves into a slow, forecasted, formulaic horror as supernatural elements are introduced. The satire of the art industry is enlightening, demonstrating the various relationships between galleries, artists, and critics. It is, however, a demographic that is not entirely relatable to the majority of the audience, and as such, much of the humour will go unheeded.

This combination of humour and horror is becoming an increasingly popular direction among filmmakers, despite attempts at humour more often than not destroying any sense of tension and dread that has been built up. Such is the case here. Combine this with the supernatural elements revolving around the artwork, it leads to many of the scenes horror being forecast well ahead of time; without suspense and surprise, the only appeal to the horror portion is the creativity in which the events occur.

Velvet Buzzsaw includes a star-studded cast, from the likes of Jake Gyllenhaal and John Malkovich, to Rene Russo and Toni Collette. Brilliant performances all around, yet the cast weren't altogether likeable, which doesn't help when the success of the film relies on your caring about the safety of the characters. Zawe Ashton was the black sheep of the group who despite being the main protagonist (alongside Gyllenhaal) came across unsympathetic and emotionless in her portrayal of her character Josephina. Gyllenhaal stole the show showcasing both ends of the personality spectrum, both serious contemplation and over-the-top, unstable, and impulsive.

There was certainly potential in the premise, but the execution was less than distinctive. The arty section reduces the impact of the horror, and the horror reduces the sophistication of the art. The horror was predictable (despite the laws of the supernatural premise being ill-defined), and put forth in such a slow but unavoidable way, that you didn't care either way what happened to any of the characters, resulting in no real payoff for the viewer.

Not a bad film by any measure, but it lacks anything that would make it memorable. Velvet Buzzsaw is not a film I'd recommend to go check out as soon as possible, neither is it something that I'd recommend not seeing at all. Tolerable, but adequate if you have nothing better to do.