COLOSSAL: 3 ½ STARS
āColossalā may be the strangest rom-com ever made. Director Nacho Vigalondo has taken the basic formatāwoman in trouble returns to hometown and strikes up a friendship with a former schoolmateāand turned it upside down. And inside out. And flipped it on its head. He simultaneously reinvents and destroys the form in a movie that might be best referred to as a rom-mon.
Anne Hathaway plays Gloria, an unemployed Manhattanite who fills her daysāand most nightsādrinking. When her boyfriend Tim (Dan Stevens) kicks her out of their apartment she returns to her small hometown a broken, drunken wreck. On home turf she reconnects with Oscar (Jason Sudeikis), a childhood friend, now owner of the local bar. She takes a job at the tavern, earns some spending cash and access to after hours booze. So far it is the set up for an unconventional rom-com.
Then things take a weird turn.
One afternoon she wakes up with the forty-ounce flu to the news that a giant monster, an enormous Kaiju, has attacked Seoul, South Korea. It is worldwide news, but it soon becomes clear to Gloria that the mysterious attacks are somehow related to her early morning stumbles as she comes home from the bar. It sounds outrageous, like the ramblings of a drunken sot, but when she takes Oscar and her bar friends to the sandbox in the local playground, the monster suddenly appears on the other side of the earth, mimicking her every move. When her movements cause havoc in Seoul she is forced to confront the monster within, her addiction.
āColossalā is the kind of script Katherine Heigl or Drew Barrymore or any other Rom Com Queen would likely toss in the trash by page 11. Hathaway, however, throws herself at it, relishing the off-kilter and dowdy character. This may be a monster movie, but the real monster is her alcoholism not the foot stomping Kaiju. Hathaway embraces Gloriaās faults, working through issuesāboth physical and metaphysicalācreating a character weāve never seen in a rom-com before.
Sudeikis begins the film as a typical rom com-suitor, a nice guy whoās there for the woman he loves. When his affection isnāt returned things take a turn, allowing Sudeikis the opportunity to explore his dark side. Put together Gloria and Oscar are the Bickersons with a destructive (literally) edge.
āColossalā isnāt exactly a monster movie or a Jennifer Anistonesque rom-com. It is something else, something original and that is its beauty. Itās a reinvention, for both Gloria and its genres.
THE LOST CITY OF Z: 2 ½ STARS
āThe Lost City of Zā is an epic true-to-life tale of adventure and intrigue. Based on the book of the same name by David Grann it stars Charlie Hunnam as a determined explorer who obsession with the Amazon led to his mysterious disappearance.
Hunnam, who will soon be seen playing another legendary character in āKing Arthur: Legend of the Sword,ā is Colonel Percy Fawcett, a man convinced of the existence of a lost city deep in the Amazon. When he discovers pottery, evidence of an advanced civilization in the region, he is ridiculed by the scientific establishment who hang on to old-fashioned ideas about indigenous populations. āYour exploits have opened every door for you,ā heās told, ābut keep your ideas to yourself. It is one thing to celebrate the people it's another to elevate them.ā At a boisterous Royal Geographical Society meeting he says, āIf we can find a city where one was for not to be able to exist we could rewrite history,ā only to be drowned out by dismissive chants of, āPots and pans! Pots and pans!ā from his peers.
Determined to prove his theory he returns, aide-de-camp Corporal Henry Costin (Robert Pattinson) and crew at his side only to be side-tracked by James Murray (Angus Macfadyen), a fellow explorer unfit for the journey.
Fawcett doesnāt give up despite Murrayās lawsuits, family trouble, his resignation from the Royal Geographical Society and World War I.
His search for the Lost City of Z provides the subtext for the movie. As much as this is an adventure tale, itās also the story of a man desperate to not only prove himself personally but professionally. Personally he was, as the mucky mucks say, āunwise in his choice of ancestors.ā Professionally, he needs to prove to his British countrymen that the forgotten South American civilization were not āsavages,ā but people who have tamed the jungle and created empires.
His third and final try is a stripped down affair with son Jack (Tom Holland) in tow.
Traditionally made, āThe Lost City of Zā feels old-fashioned, as though you could almost imagine James Mason and Gregory Peck in the leads. It takes us back to a slower time, a moment in histry before there were Starbucks on evefy corner and movies had to have gotcha moments woven throughout. It throws the modern adventure movie playbook out the window. There is no timetable for the action, no crash-and-burn scene every 10 minutes, just a story of survival and class warfare.
For much of the running time thatās OK. Director James Gray takes his time laying out Fawcettās obsession, allowing us to get under the skin of a man with much to prove. It begins to feel overlong at the hour-and-a-half mark during a scene, wedged between the second and third explorations were a psychic goes on at length about the importance of Fawcettās work and we still have WWI and the third expedition to go! It is the movieās ādropout moment,ā the scene that loses the audience and the film never recovers.
Itās a shame because āThe Lost City of Zā is a handsome movie, ripe with subtext and solid performances. Itās is also self indulgent, in need of one of Fawcettās jungle machetes to chop it down to size.
UNFORGETTABLE: 1 STAR
In āUnforgettableā one family blows apart, while another comes together. And thatās when the trouble starts. The advertising tagline says it all, āWhen Love Ends, Madness Begins!ā
Originally meant to star Kate Hudson and Kerry Washington as spurned ex wife and new bride respectively of David (Geoff Stults), they dropped out to be replaced by Katherine Heigl and Rosario Dawson.
In the 1980s style psycho-romance drama sees the two actresses face off.
Tessa (Heigl) is the ex, and mother of Lily (Isabella Kai Rice). Sheās an obsessive perfectionist, a Mommie Dearest who uses Lily as a pawn as she tries to win David back. To pass the time when she isnāt plotting against Julia, she watches her wedding videos with tears in her eyes.
Julia (Dawson) is Davidās new girlfriend. A transplant from New York, she moves to California to be with him, leaving behind a troubled past that includes an abusive boyfriend (Simon Kassianides).
David, the centre of attention is a bland former New York City Merrill Lynch hot shot who uprooted to California to take over the family brewery. He is as oblivious as he is handsome.
When Tessa discovers Julia and David are to be married a switch goes off in her head and she steps into āFatal Attractionā territory. First she hacks into Juliaās phone, does some mild identity theft and by the time we see POV shots of her prowling around David and Juliaās love pad the conspiracy to break the happy couple up has been put into place.
Itās a cheap shot but it has to be said, āUnforgettableā is unforgivable. What could've been a down and dirty exploitation b-movie is undone by characters straight out of Central Casting. Not only are they stereotypesāDavid is the good guy who says things like, āNothing matters but you and I,ā while the bad guy is simply a snarling animalābut they are mind-numbing stereotypes. Weāve seen them all before and better. None have any shading. Tessa, Julia and David exist strictly to move the story along, not to be real people. Only the cop character (Robert Wisdom) stands out, and thatās only because he may possibly be the dumbest policeman in cinematic history.
Then there is the limp-as-a-cooked-noodle plot. Can this rightly be called a thriller when every twist and turn is telegraphed and amplified by a script devoid of mystery or secrets? I donāt think so. For example, [MILD SPOILER ALERT] as one of the characters is about to take a bonk on the head ask yourself, āDoes he not see the heavy iron fireplace poker in her hand?ā You knew it was going to happen, people you tell about the movie, but who havenāt even seen it, could tell it was going to happen but it is just one example of many of the death defying suspension of disbelief the filmmakers expect from the audience.
āUnforgettableā is a revenge movie that feels like the ultimate revenge was on the audience.
FREE FIRE: 4 STARS
The worst part of writing reviews is regurgitating the synopsis. Perhaps thatās one of the reason I liked āFree Fire,ā the new shoot-em-up from director Ben Wheatley, so much. His follow-up to the psycho sci fi movie āHigh Riseā can be described with an economy of words: Ten bad people meet, a grudge emerges, bullet fly. The End.
For those craving more detail, the story begins at a rundown warehouse in Boston with Irish Republican Army out-of-towners Chris (Cillian Murphy) and Frank (Michael Smiley) and their henchmen Bernie (Enzo Cilenti) and Stevo (Sam Riley) buying thirty rifles from Vernon (Sharlto Copley). Vernonās team includes Martin (Babou Ceesay), Gordon (Noah Taylor) and Harry (Jack Reynor). Bringing them together are Justine (Brie Larson) and Ord (Armie Hammer) fixers who stand to make mucho bucks.
The deal goes south, however, when a beef erupts between Stevo and Harry. Words, then punches and finally bullets are exchanged as the situation spins out of control. Soon itās every man or woman for himself or herself as everyone exchanges bullets and barbs.
The gun battle makes up the bulk of the film but this is no average bullet ballet. Wheatley and co-writer Amy Jump carefully calibrate the action, mixing gunfire with sharp dialogue and plenty of irreverent, dark humour. Their best trick is keeping it real. When people get shot in āFree Fireā they donāt shake it off like most action movie characters. Instead they shriek, whine, wince and in pain, putting the strong silent type clichés of most first person shooters in the rear view mirror. As the situation grows more desperate so do the characters as they struggle to stay alive long enough to grab the elusive suitcase filled with cash, settle old scores and trade schoolyard taunts.
Itās hard not to see echoes of āReservoir Dogsā in āFree Fire.ā The warehouse setting and sketchy characters suggest Tarantino but Wheatley has done something else here. Heās packed away all pretension, all sentiment and focussed on making a down-ān-dirty but wildly entertaining b-movie.