Director: Taika Waititi
Writers: Eric Pearson, Craig Kyle, Christopher Yost, Stan Lee (based on comics by)
Stars: Chris Hemsworth, Tom Hiddleston, Cate Blanchett, Mark Ruffalo, Jeff Goldblum

Synopsis: Imprisoned, the mighty Thor finds himself in a lethal gladiatorial contest against the Hulk, his former ally. Thor must fight for survival and race against time to prevent the all-powerful Hela from destroying his home and the Asgardian civilization.

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In the middle of a fight with her younger brother Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Hela (Cate Blanchett) mockingly asks what kind of god is he. Identity was precisely the thing one questioned when the thunderous hammer time in London four years back turned out to be an affair absent of delight or, at the least, fun. As a follow-up, The Dark World was a disheartening one, especially when its predecessor was proof that Marvel can turn its superheroes, no matter how out-there, into enjoyable popcorn-munchers.

Ragnarok, safe to say, is the franchise’s redemption; one that is colorful, in all sense of the word. With funnyman Taika Waititi at the helm, replacing the dullness and even the Shakespearean earnestness is humor—surprising, natural, and diaphragm-bruising brand of humor. The funny bone is targeted almost instantly, with a caged Thor explaining why he’s so to a skeleton. And it continues when he faces his captor, the towering and fire-scarred Surtur (Clancy Brown), dedicating only half of an ear listening to the imminent and inevitable fulfillment of a prophecy: the apocalypse of Asgard.

And, guess what, it continues—to the point danger and despair become auxiliaries. The “oh no” after Mjolnir’s breakage is replaced with all the “hahas” nestled on Sakaar, the interstellar counterpart of plastic-polluted Henderson Island where its flamboyant ruler, Grandmaster (Jeff Goldblum, gloriously nonchalant), hosts gladiator matches against his champion, Hulk (Mark Ruffalo). Revisits to a desperate Asgard in despair do occur, but they move fast to make space for whatever uproarious antics Thor and Hulk will raise alongside liquor-loaded bounty hunter Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson, oozing confidence) plus recurring mischief Loki (Tom Hiddleston). Apologies, almost forgot Korg the cordial (perishable-)rock warrior, who is a trove of witty lines—a result of being voiced and mo-capped by Waititi.

Don’t misunderstand: laughing is great, particularly when the times are trying and especially when all the performers surprise at timing their funnies. It’s just the hit-after-hit of firecracker gags of sight and of speech undermine Blanchett’s efforts to make Hela sensual-yet-deadly, charismatic-yet-wily. But, as it is so visible on the cast’s faces, everyone is having absolute fun bouncing off each other that nearly nothing matters; often are occasions proving that Waititi’s direction is an improv-encouraged kind. Easter eggs and cameo roles benefit from this as they, say Sam Neill, Matt Damon and Luke Hemsworth, get to (momentarily) blend in as intended rather than a “Hey, that’s Stan Lee!” at the first millisecond.  

With a $180 million budget, safe to say the Ragnarok Comedy Troupe has no worries about them being under-dressed or their production being unimpressive. As with Godzilla’s Gareth Edwards, Waititi’s first large-scale filmmaking brush has zero sign of greenhorn-ery. Action sequences are framed with such mastery from d.o.p. Javier Aguirresarobe that a pause equals a painting for the Louvre—or maybe (insert city)’s hottest roller rink since some of them may be coated with either a perfect needle drop of Led Zeppellin’s Immigrant Song or Mark Mothersbaugh’s playful synth score. Waititi and crew have used all the measures to muzzle the rogue “why no color” commenter…

Or rightfully subject them to What We Do in the Shadows’ really harsh punishment.

So what is Thor the god of again, one may ask—with a jollier tone—when this kaleidoscopic superhero laugh-a-thon is over. Strange things have happened to let the God of Thunder evolve since 2011, and Ragnarok, by presenting the strangest ones thus far, truly move the character forward and keep us from dipping the rest of our toe into superhero fatigue. Villainy continues to be vanilla despite the menacing garb, but one still hopes that it will grow less so. It’s the only way for the MCU to secure a high note at its purported end.

Overall Grade: B+

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Hear our podcast review on Episode 246.

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Director: Marc Forster
Writers: Sean Conway (screenplay), Marc Forster (screenplay)
Stars: Blake Lively, Jason Clarke, Ahna O’Reilly

Synopsis: A blind woman’s relationship with her husband changes when she regains her sight and discovers disturbing details about themselves.

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With all the stylistic elements in that opening love-making scene alone, director Marc Forster shows that he’s “home,” free from the constraints inherent in helming large-scale productions like World War Z and Quantum of Solace. And that is both a blessing and a curse in All I See is You.

Warping, upside-down, slo-mo and snippets of a Michelangelo-esque, um, orgy, it seems like visual overkill—only if the protagonist isn’t blind. Gina (Blake Lively), however, is; her sight gone after a car accident when young and is now wholly dependent on husband James (Jason Clarke) and her imagination. She uses more of the latter, an act which Forster and d.o.p. Matthias Koenigwieser take advantage of to continually hand out luscious bon-bons for the optics. The ways the world interacts with Gina are downright striking throughout, regardless if their design is simple— faintly colored waves of sounds piercing Gina’s milky vision—or less so—laps in a public pool become an endless swim in a dreamy ocean.

Even when Gina gets to see again, the result of an experimental treatment headed by Doctor Hughes (Danny Huston), the direction remains visual-driven. Sights are now less ethereal, and in their stead are vertiginous overhead shots highlighting the literal bigger picture that Gina remains foreign to. Therein lies the problem, however, as All I See is You’s commitment to be scenic reflects its forgetfulness to be thrilling.

That’s a shame since TIFF categorizes the film as a thriller. The script from Forster and Ray Donovan’s Sean Conway certainly fits the mold— inspecting a couple’s breakdown when mystique is gone and absent is the need for the other person—and yet it unfolds as if sedated. The pages seem to make room for storms when Gina, who hates being treated like an impaired soul by James, has a habit of reducing him to a nincompoop (especially regarding sex), but all are vague breezes when translated into sights to see. Perhaps that is why there is a one-year gap between the film’s release date and its premiere at festival.

And right when the tame interpersonal matters show a much-needed sign of bubbling, the film turns off the heat by introducing Gina’s sister (Ahna O’ Reilly) and her over-energized husband (Miquel Fernández). While their presence adds another layer to Gina’s unfulfilled need for graphic intimacy, this subplot is ultimately resolved with a barely-there whimper that fails to justify its inclusion. One can think the same of James’ continual revisits of a botched BDSM session on a night train. In Forster’s eyes, however, these moments are opportunities to introduce more beautiful scenery, to satisfy the inner visualist. Viewers, meanwhile, need him to focus on the story.

Slightly wasted then are the players, particularly Lively and Clarke who display believable chemistry. Lively’s sultry turn here adds another special note to her post-Gossip Girl filmography; Gina is magnetic—always—at a new low due to her weakened sight or at a damaging high from wanting her life to look like others’. The actress is also why we stay seated even when the film abruptly locks itself in an operatic trance to wrap things up after drowning in slowness for two-thirds of its runtime. There, though, (and again) does Forster find “more style” as the reason to push on, which to us reflects his blindness to what makes All I See is You truly functional.

Overall Grade: C

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Director: Richard Linklater
Writers: Richard Linklater, Darryl Ponicsan (novel)
Stars: Steve Carell, Bryan Cranston, Laurence Fishburne

Synopsis: Thirty years after they served together in Vietnam, a former Navy Corpsman Larry “Doc” Shepherd reunites with his old buddies, former Marines Sal Nealon and Reverend Richard Mueller, to bury his son, a young Marine killed in the Iraq War.

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If you’ve never experienced the hardships of losing a family member, especially a sibling or child, then Last Flag Flying will fearfully give you that unwanted state of recession. Not just for the film, but also relating to reality, having someone incredibly close to you pass away is essentially a never ending, abhorrent dream that’ll continue to engulf anyone long after their loss. What makes Last Flag Flying distant from what could’ve been a repulsive 124 minute movie of unexplored grief, it’s the deep culmination that brews when following all of the decisions that come with loss while also establishing and questioning the viewpoints of apposite real world issues.

Richard Linklater’s range of filmmaking is rather unexpected when taking into consideration the broad spectrum of genres and personal techniques that he induces in to his earlier projects. He’s obviously made a name for himself by specializing in those low-budget, feel-good films like Dazed and Confused and The Before Trilogy but can deliver projects clear out of the blue like Boyhood or Bad News Bears. Last Flag Flying falls somewhere right in the middle. Even with its adaption from the novel and time period of the early 2000s in which it takes place, it feels more significant now than it ever could have possibly been without Linklater attached. Not just solely because of him, but also because of the absolutely exceptional ensemble cast he’s equipped his film with.

This trio of actors that each hold a spot as a main character, have some of the most riveting details when they spend time reflecting on the past and future. Each actor coming from such diverse filmography but successful backgrounds make this film simply, so real. Linklater pens the development of each persona in contrast to Carell’s character. Cranston is the free spirit, whereas Fishburne is the voice of reason. It’s when the difficulty that Carell’s character occurs that Cranston and Fishburne undergo their own significant development. They’re all simultaneously building this grand emotional arc between the three characters just in different ways they can each cope with it. We know the feeling between each character is mutual, but the pure talent Linklater has from page-to-screen feels like they’re all going through different changes albeit being similar.

Before moving on, I feel obligated to bring up why Last Flag Flying, even with its near-perfect execution, suffers from a shortlist of virtually uncontrollable faults. For one, in the midst of the emotional depth being built, there’s a short patch in the aftermath of the exposition where you’re not exactly sure where the film’s heading. There’s a couple of scenes that bring this element of how the film feels like it’s just going to be a short forthcoming of our central characters, putting to rest all of the unmatched potential you can see it achieving. Eventually and thankfully, crucial events are finally set in motion to put the film on the right track. I suppose this is also just a personal nitpick, but after the final presence of the climax, I suppose you can say I just wanted a bit more of solidity of what were given from Steve Carell’s character and from everyone else in general. It’s probably something that depends on the type of audience and frankly just who’s watching it but sadly for me it felt a bit unmatched.

The lack of fulfillment from the resolution is made up in the department of character development and tone. Although mostly serious, for its own good it’s comedic at perfect moments. Not just for scenes in need of comedic relief but also in just scenes of dialogue with characters interacting with on another. There’s one scene in particular where all three laugh constantly at the stories they’re reminiscing on which only makes the audience laugh even harder. But disregarding the flawless tone and development, it’s the spectacular performances across the board that make the film thrive so well.

Even with the discrete yet small number of flaws it suffers from, Last Flag Flying is brilliant. Every category that exists within it is impeccable in terms of how it’s being portrayed. It’s definitely one of Linklater’s most solid pieces of work as of late. I think it has the chance to leave an even bigger mark over time if given the right chances and audience.

Overall Grade: B+

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Hear our podcast review on an upcoming Extra Film.

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Director: Yorgos Lanthimos
Writers: Yorgos Lanthimos, Efthymis Filippou
Stars: Nicole Kidman, Alicia Silverstone, Colin Farrell

Synopsis: Steven, a charismatic surgeon, is forced to make an unthinkable sacrifice after his life starts to fall apart, when the behavior of a teenage boy he has taken under his wing turns sinister.

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Yorgos Lanthimos arrived an apparently fully-formed filmmaker. His 2009 directorial debut, Dogtooth, swept the awards in his native Greece, and subsequent word-of-mouth advertising has seen his star rise on a trajectory not dissimilar from that of Denis Villeneuve, whose own critically lauded Incendies has launched a potential period of highly lucrative, artsy Hollywood dominance. Not that these filmmakers share much beyond their un-American origins; where Villeneuve might lay claim to Spielberg’s heir apparent, Lanthimos appears altogether more comfortable on the periphery, refusing to betray the distinctly European nature of his work. The Killing of a Sacred Deer is no different, and may even be his most assured film.

Colin Farrell and Nicole Kidman are Steven and Anna. Both successful doctors – she an ophthalmologist, he a cardiologist – their lives initially appear bliss incarnate: two over-achieving kids, a chocolate box home amidst bucolic splendor… perfection. Very early on, however, we’re introduced to Martin, a 16-year-old boy with whom Steven is holding secretive rendezvous and exchanging gifts. Martin, we soon learn, is the son of one of Steven’s patients, a patient who didn’t make it through surgery and may-or-may-not motivate nefarious stirrings in the teenage boy. To say much more of the plot would be a disservice to those who’re yet to see the film, suffice to say things take a dramatic turn for the Hitchcockian worse. The ensuing tension, of which there is excruciatingly much, of course plays out in a distinctly Lanthimosian manner. Those familiar with his past work, most notably the jet-blackly comic, almost robotic dialogue that permeates The Lobster, will be attune to this. And it’s in the writing that …Sacred Deer really excels. Without the screenplay’s ultimate ability to divert attention with a grin you’re trying desperately to suppress we’d be left with Michael Haneke’s Funny Games (A fine film, incidentally, but short on laughs).

A word on the brilliant score, which pairs an equally dissonant droning brass section with punctuating, Psycho-like piano. The menace, if it weren’t tangible enough, fills every empty space with real impact. Even moments we know and might ordinarily expect to be tough on imagery alone are peppered with these discordant rhythms. It’s painful. In a good way. A wonderful moment in which harmony briefly interjects in the shape of a choir rehearsal fails even to subdue the threat.

Like all his best work, Lanthimos has invited us into a world in which we’d rather not be but sadistically can’t deny. It’s interesting to think of what another director may have made of the script; would John Carpenter have had the patience to allow us to bathe in the uncomplimentary eeriness before he slays his deer? Probably not. But a defiant back has been turned on the orthodoxy, and we’re left with an absurdist domestic thriller that appalls, provokes, delights and, most importantly, energizes.

Overall Grade: A-

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Director: Dean Devlin
Writers: Dean Devlin, Paul Guyot
Stars: Gerard Butler, Jim Sturgess, Abbie Cornish

Synopsis: When the network of satellites designed to control the global climate starts to attack Earth, it’s a race against the clock to uncover the real threat before a worldwide Geostorm wipes out everything and everyone.

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In case you were not aware, I’m British. This tends to mean that along with a slight sense of guilt over abusing indigenous peoples for a few hundred years, and mediocre dental work, we’re obsessed with the weather.

Seriously.

If you are ever visiting our soggy little island and wish to strike up a conversation with a local, starting with a line like “Lovely day today, wasn’t it?” or “I’ve heard it’s going to rain at the weekend” will be an instant icebreaker. Think of this as a top tip if you’d like to chat up a Brit, but a couple of words of warning: 1) once you’ve opened the weather gambit, you may not actually be able to get said Briton to shut up again and 2) as mentioned above, mediocre dental work.

Weather is Britain’s other national obsession after, of course, the addiction to tea. We love talking about the weather, trying to predict the weather, complaining about the weather, enjoying the weather and discussing whether the weather will disrupt the village fete/cricket match/Mrs Miggin’s Pie Festival (delete as appropriate). One national newspaper has published so many insane weather stories on its front page, it’s developed its own brand of satire….

Which is all a bit weird as the British weather can be summed up thus: not too hot, not too cold, usually wet.
We’re so comfortable in this happy little zone that we’ve developed a clothing style that seems odd to the rest of the world. It is not unusual to see a Briton in October in a pair of shorts paired with a waterproof jacket. He’s not confused, it’s just that it’s not that cold. Europeans from warmer countries like Spain, Portugal and Italy visiting in October stare in amazement at this odd sight, sometimes muttering lines like: “But it’s 10° C (50F), why is he in shorts?” failing to realize that it is not unheard of for our peak summer temperature to only hit 20°C (68F). And it’d still be raining.

Also this sort of bloody-mindedness really annoys the French, and if the British like doing anything, it’s winding up the French.

This predictibility of our weather makes our obsession with it even odder, but also ensures that stuff about the weather is BIG business in the UK. We have whole prime time TV series devoted to “The Great British Weather” (five hours explaining how rain is good), examinations of “Britain’s Wildest Weather” (basically not too hot, not too cold, bit wet, bit blowy), the Radio4 Shipping forecast is a national institution that celebrated its 150th Birthday this year and has been the inspiration for songs, poetry and comedy. Even odder, our weather presenters become national celebrities identified by first name only – that’s right: Kanye, Beyonce, Carol. Our weather is so bland and predictable that we have to remember back to times we got caught out by slightly different weather: Every year we remember “The Great Storm”, mainly so they can trot out ancient video footage of weatherman Michael Fish (currently performing in a national comedy tour – I s*** you not) assurring the country that there wasn’t a hurricane on the way, the day before a hurricane hit the county of Kent causing ‘widespread damage’ of the kind that Puerto Ricans currently would only scoff at, but, hilariously, reducing the titular number of trees in the town of Sevenoaks to one.

This last event, a combination of cock-up and weather report, was deemed so quintessentially British, we included it the opening ceremony of the 2012 Olympics. You know, just before we had the Queen jump from a helicopter…
All this probably explains why I shouldn’t have been surprised to find the screening of Gerard Butler’s latest movie practically full. Britons are obsessed with the weather, the weather makes us miserable, lets watch a film where the weather makes Americans miserable instead. What could be more fun?

As it turns out, pretty much anything else, including wearing shorts in the October drizzle.
According to Geostorm, sometime in the very near future, Earth’s weather will go wrong with increasingly terrible storms, flooding, and extreme freezing and thawing events. The situation gets worse and worse until the World’s scientists team up to create a network of satellites called Dutch Boy that control the weather. These satellites are positioned into a physical net that covers the whole world and are maintained and serviced by an orbiting space station and manned by a nicely multi-racial crew from the international community that is serviced by a fleet of space shuttles.

And all is well with the world for a number of years until a UN patrol comes across unexpected flash-freezing event in the surprisingly sandy deserts of Afghanistan causing a number of unfortunate peasants to come over all Robert-Patrick-at-the-end-of-Terminator-2. The US covers up this error, declaring it a computer glitch and the world is none the wiser, despite the UN discovery of the issue in the first place (I know).

Cue the man who devised and built Dutch Boy, Jake Lawson, to be called back to Washington to shout at the West Wing’s Toby Ziegler for character purposes and get fired. Which is helpful as the US, who apparently paid for and built the Dutch Boy network, are coming to the internationally agreed point in time where they hand over ownership of the network to the international community, despite the network being maintained and run by the international community on the Space Station (I know). To piss off our glowering Scot a bit more, his job is taken by his younger brother Max (Jim Sturgess – bland).

So Gerard heads off to Florida to retire, but more weather events keep occurring and finally an expendable Indian scientist dies on the Space Station so the US President (Andy Garcia) decides to solve the issue rather than hand over a broken system.

Max, knowing how the game is played, wants to send a team of people. He’s the good cop, the sensible cop. But Garcia knows better, he wants only one man to keep the investigation small and unobtrusive. He wants the older brother. Jake’s back in the game!

So Gerard goes back to the space station on his own to investigate and is immediately introduced to the team with who he will work to solve the stations problems (I know, bear with). While Max gets cold feet back on Earth, especially when he shares his deepening suspicions with Secret Service agent/girlfriend Sarah Wilson (Abbie Cornish) – the relationship they must keep secret because it is against the rules. Ignoring his small team, Jake enlists the entire space station (I know, look, it’s that kind of film) to check stuff and discovers sabotage, Max uncovers the plot behind the sabotage and cue action, adventure and all that good stuff.

A few of you may have noticed something about the plot synopsis above – namely the absence of a Geostorm. Okay, let’s deal with that up front: There isn’t one. Geostorm, the movie, doesn’t actually contain a Geostorm, the event.

A Geostorm is explained by one expendable Asian actor as a combination of self-sustaining weather events across the globe. Max is the only one that understands what this means, but that doesn’t stop the film from having every other character immediately understand what a Geostorm is the moment they first hear the name. They even have computer graphics for it.

This is the start of a slippery logical slope that, if we went down it, we’d never end this review. So, for the sake of our sanity lets just say that the science, in fact the general plausibility, of this film is complete and utter bunkum. From the need to physically connect orbiting satellites with rods into a rigid net, to the requirement to have space shuttles land on wheels when docking with a space station, to the satellites seeming to be a kind of module in a much larger array, to the weather controlling apparatus itself, to the shuttles on set having a rear-mounted loading door for actor access, but the CGI ones in space having rear mounted engines, everything, and I do mean everything, is unexplained nonsense.

Gerard Butler is Jake, and he’s a manly man. He’s so manly he’s unshaven, tells authority to piss off, he’s tough on his daughter, and split up from her mom. He drinks beer, owns a muscle car, wakes up late and looks great in a jump suit. He’s impetuous, acts first, asks questions later. He once punched a senator in the face. He’s here to kick ass and chew gum, and he’s all outta gum. America, F***-Yeah!

Sorry, I got carried away there. If that sounds like an in-depth character analysis, it is, but I didn’t get that from this film. Butler’s Jake is a flim-flam construct of every action movie hero cliche you’ve ever seen, but with the added implausibility of him being an astronaut. And engineer. Butler, a macho actor brilliantly referred to by the BBC’s Mark Kermode as “Shouty Buttwad”, is a gruff, charming man, but he has no character at all to work with. Jake is a bullet-point construction, the audience expected to fill in the gaps where the script can’t be bothered to. It’s so lazy, and so boring.

Jim Sturgess’ Max is exactly the same, a cut-n-paste straight guy character you have seen a bazillion times before. He’s in love with a girl but he can’t tell anyone, he follows the rules until he realises that others aren’t playing by them, he persuades his girl to break her code for love and together they clean up this town. Yeehah!
Sorry, sorry, sorry, I was off again.

We’ve the straight-laced Secret Service agent girlfriend who plays everything by the book. We’ve got the supportive old codger who’s seen it all before (Ed Harris’ Dekkom), we’ve got the spunky, punky rebellious girl hacker who can break into anything (Zazie Beetz’ Dana – Good). If you haven’t seen the pictures of these characters yet allow me to describe them – Cornish looks like Sarah Walker from Chuck, Ed Harris looks like Frank Horrigan from In the Line of Fire, and Zazie Beetz looks like Ramsey from Fast and the Furious. And guess what? They are exactly the same characters too.

The plot is likewise a feeble construct of recycled ideas smashed together in the hope that something will stick. We have freezing weather events (The Day after Tomorrow), earthquakes (2012, San Andreas), tidal waves (Deep Impact) and a heat laser (err… Die Another Day). In all cases these are deployed exactly as in the films they have been stolen from, and in the case of the heat laser it even feels like they’ve nicked the same special effect. Stitching the weather issues together we have a space station which suffers some mishaps (Gravity), Space Shuttles (Armageddon) and treacherous intrigue in locker rooms (ok, you got me here, but it feels familiar). On Earth we have threats to the president (The Manchurian Candidate, In the Line of Fire), cars racing away from earthquake cracks and lava (Volcano, Dante’s Peak), and skulduggery in the White House (Air Force One). Underlying it all we have a critical system, essential to protecting life on earth, but someone wants it to fail (Sunshine, The Core). Who could be so dastardly, and why?

The whole thing feels like a first draft that somehow got greenlit, as if the producers asked for a possible concept for a flick and when presented with the script equivalent of a mood-board simply said “That’s perfect, let’s get filming”.

Geostorm is played absolutely seriously most of the time. I think it thinks it’s a thriller, but to be honest, I don’t think anyone involved actually cares. The actors have so little to work with: they are doing their best, but they are clearly not committed. Ed Harris gets a notable mention here for trying to draw something out of stale pool of his character, but it’s beyond him. There’s irritating glimmers of promise, the odd decent line, some comedic interplay, hints of brotherly bonhomie, Abbie Cornish’s strict bad-assery, but that’s all it is, glimmers. Brief hints. They cannot put a dent the in the sheer mountain of issues this film suffers from.

It’s not even a pitable mess, as it looks hugely expensive. The special effects in the space scenes are extremely good and the Space Station sets are vast, detailed and interesting. It looks great to be honest, but only the space bits. The rest is just dull dull dull. There’s no visual interest, it’s not very pretty, it looks like a poor TV movie. The car chase at the end of the film is simply awful. One of the ugliest action sequences I think I have ever seen. I mean, who doesn’t want to see a Mercedes taxi be chased in a freeway underpass…

We can’t pity anyone really as all of the flaws of this film should have been obvious when the script, if it remotely resembled the one in the finished film, was first presented. Stories from the troubled production imply there is an even worse version out there than this. I hope we never get to see it.

I also cringed at the sheer crassness of everything. The climax sees Dubai get hit by a tidal wave, Rio hit by an ice storm-tidal wave thingy, Mumbai get hit by tornadoes, and Moscow by a heat ray. Millions dead, colossal disaster, humanitarian catastrophe, but everyone at NASA are in tears for the loss of one man in orbit (#spoilernotaspoiler). There’s an unpleasant racist undercurrent that bubbles along through out the film – ethnic characters are killed off, but white guys save the day. Mumbai gets flattened, Hong Kong blown up, Dubai drowned, Tokyo pelted, Rio … actually I don’t know what the f*** happened to Rio, but the only white city we see affected was Moscow – presumably because no-one likes Russians. Oh, and Devlin has to save the bloody dog. Again.

I spent huge parts of my time watching this through my fingers. I wasn’t remotely annoyed with the 12 year old got bored and asked his Mom “Why are they doing that?” Eliciting the beautiful response from his mother: “I really don’t know”. I wasn’t annoyed with the lady next to me gave up and began viewing Facebook. That usually really annoys me, but this time, I wanted to be looking at Facebook. I wanted to leave. I wanted to be doing anything else than watch this film.

It is dull, unoriginal, insultingly stupid and bereft of almost all entertainment value.

Overall Grade: F

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Director: Kevin Phillips
Writers: Ben Collins (co-writer), Luke Piotrowski (co-writer)
Stars: Owen Campbell, Charlie Tahan, Elizabeth Cappuccino

Synopsis: Teenagers Zach and Josh have been best friends their whole lives, but when a gruesome accident leads to a cover-up, the secret drives a wedge between them and propels them down a rabbit hole of escalating paranoia and violence.

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First time director Kevin Phillips shows a tremendous amount of vigor in Super Dark Times, interjecting skillful precision in how he paces, edits and shoots this film. The 90’s flourishes come alive here, taking me back to my childhood in ways I haven’t experienced in a long time. However, nostalgia isn’t a friend in Super Dark Times, but rather it allows these characters to experience lossness in a more isolated and truthful way.

The ominous prologue is very cold and suggestive of how bleak things can get, a through-line that wreaks havoc in the film’s back half. Phillips opens the film with dark foreshadowing, but the mood quickly shifts to a more light-hearted opening act where we meet friends Zack and Josh. In fact, outside of that prologue, the opening 20 minutes plays more like Stand By Me in how we see the endearing comradery between Zack, Josh, and two other friends – Daryl and Charlie – they meet up with. It’s actually quite delightful.

Soon after though, as the young boys are smoking weed and playing with a samurai sword, things become deadly. From there, Super Dark Times lives up to its title as these boys begin to cope with the harsh reality around them. In an instant, childhood innocence is lost and it’s in these themes where Kevin Phillips showcases true prowess.

Super Dark Times is a film about the inevitability that innocence will be lost, and it’s what you replace with that defines you. It’s less concerned with being another “coming of age” film, but instead it’s more involved with how teenagers react to the bitter brutality of life. Each character deals with this differently, offering up viewpoints that range from complete despair to anger to clinging to hope.

These themes ring very true in part due to Phillips’ aesthetic vision, which couples extremely well with its dramatic overtones. The film looks like it came from Alfonso Cauron’s Children of Men. The town is colorless and lived in, giving it a post-apocalyptic ambiance. That visual approach gives this film a mood that evokes a feeling of uneasiness, something that palpably works in its favor as the story unfolds.

As much as I adored the first two-thirds of Super Dark Times, the final act does fizzle out slightly. The film becomes less interested in its vivid visuals and stark symbolism, and instead it becomes too entangled in its thriller components. The narrative feels confused and misguided, leaving loose ends that are dramatically frustrating.

Despite that, Super Dark Times is a fascinating film that tackles important themes that I found nuanced and invigorating. Own Campbell, Charlie Tahan and Elizabeth Cappuccino are really terrific in their respective roles. Phillips’ direction is some of the best I’ve seen in 2017, especially in how he manages tone, visuals and the fallout of this unfortunate tragedy in these characters. The score and sound design is also captivating in this film.

The film is currently available on demand and is streaming on most platforms. Please seek it out.

Overall Grade: B+

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