Director: Tsui Hark
Writer: Tsui Hark
Stars: Xiao Zhan, Zhuang Dafei, Tony Leung Ka-fai

Synopsis: Under Genghis Khan, the Mongolian army pushes west to destroy the Jin Dynasty, setting its sights on the Song Dynasty next. Amid internal conflicts among martial arts schools, Guo Jing unites the Central Plains’ warriors to defend Xiangyang, embodying courage and loyalty in the fight for the nation.

After co-directing the two-part propaganda piece The Battle of Lake Changjin with Chen Kaige and Dante Lam, Tsui Hark finally returns to his martial arts roots by adapting chapters 35 to 40 of Jin Yong’s The Legend of the Condor Heroes. With the subtitle The Gallants, the wuxia epic tracks the confrontation between the Mongolian army and the Song Dynasty. It follows martial artist Guo Jing (Xiao Zhang), who is caught in the middle of the conflict. For the bulk of its hefty 147-minute runtime, Hark focuses on a love triangle between Guo Jing, Huang Rong (Zhuang Dafei), and Hua Zheng (Zhang Whenxin); the latter being the daughter of Mongolian emperor Genghis Khan (Baya’ertu). 

Moving at a rapid pace, Legends of the Condor Heroes: The Gallants wastes no time throwing the audience into the throes of war and introducing us to its hero, who has mastered martial arts techniques from several masters. As digitally stitched as some of the fights may be, Hark hasn’t lost his touch from the moment he came on the scene during the Golden Age of Hong Kong cinema with Zu Warriors from the Magic Mountain, A Better Tomorrow III: Love & Death in Saigon, and the Once Upon a Time in China series, which put Jet Li on the map as a worldwide sensation through his turn as Wong Fei-hung. 

Working in Hollywood with Jean-Claude Van Damme for Double Team and Knock Off sharpened his action filmmaking skills to new horizons, making him a recognizable figure for genre aficionados. As he returned to China, Hark continued to make movies, though with varying degrees of quality: chintzy visuals, unimpressive screenplays, and (seemingly well-mounted) action sequences that sadly lacked the anarchism he was most known for were highly prevalent. Watching Legends of the Condor Heroes: The Gallants, it feels like Hark has combined his best and worst post-digital qualities. When shooting on film, Hark crafted images of impeccable, often poetic beauty that transcended the mere “epicness” of a large-scale action set piece and turned it into a work of magnifying art. 

The thunderstorm confrontation between Wong Fei-hung and Iron Shirt Yim in the first Once Upon a Time in China is forever etched in my memory for precisely that reason. It was as if the doors of cinema had opened to me in ways I never imagined were possible before fully delving into Hark’s filmography, which, to be honest, has enthralled me more than it has disappointed. That’s why I was compelled by the film’s digitized style, which never tries to hide its technical shortcomings. Hark, who has also designed its action scenes, makes each punch or movement feel like the grandest possible act when characters are pitted against one another. An early fight sequence meant to inform the audience of Guo Jing’s powers is hampered by some of the worst CGI of Hark’s career: green screens so fake it feels like we’ve been transported to the Megalopolis, or noticeable digital stitches to move a character from one place to the next (as seen in Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga) making it look like a video game cutscene. 

Yet, compared to the aforementioned blockbusters, there’s a sincere earnestness in Hark’s image-making that one can’t look away from despite the severe dip in quality we’ve seen from the filmmaker. Once Upon a Time in China (or Green Snake, his most artful motion picture), this is not. Many will unfairly compare apples to oranges, which is understandable given the streak of masterpieces this man has released in his lifetime. But I’ve always been fascinated by filmmaking traditionalists now being confronted with new technologies – how do they respond with ever-changing aesthetics, cameras, and viewing habits? For Hark, the first step was to shoot Flying Swords of the Dragon Gate in 3D, which he then used in two installments of the Detective Dee franchise. 

However, those films had many practical qualities that were completely absent in Legends of the Condor Heroes, his most “digitized” film yet. Each computer-generated pixel renders some of the visual poetry he wants to give to his superimpositions, or the use of contrasting colors when staging a set piece near peach blossoms seem completely artificial. A few scenes later, he’ll stage a fight scene so meticulously constructed, both in how he operates the digital environment he’s working in and his ever-intricate choreographies, that any half-baked sequence feels like a fluke, especially when it comes to the movie’s final confrontation. 

Maybe that’s where the entire budget went because the duel between Guo Jing and the primary antagonist, Ouyang (Tony Leung Ka-fai), is Hark in his element – blending his conception of wuxia with the latest and greatest in modern filmmaking sensibilities. To reveal more would mean spoiling the fun, but it made the (few) people in the auditorium lean forward to the screen in total excitement, proving that, despite some of his late-stage missteps, he still has the touch that made him such an iconic figure in Martial Arts filmmaking. One has to remember that Hark was once the envy of Hong Kong cinema, and, with John Woo, Ringo Lam, Sammo Hung, Ching Siu-tung (and many others), was singlehandedly responsible for ushering in a new age of technical sophistication and artistry in their motion pictures. 

It’s a shame that, despite his constant experimentation with form, the story in Legends of the Condor Heroes leaves a lot to be desired. Both Zhan and Dafei give fine performances but have little sense of chemistry together, despite frequent attempts at infusing expressivity within the romantic triangle, both visually and in how Hark films both bodies connecting with each other. It also doesn’t help that most of the conflict seems too scattershot, with endless bursts of exposition that feel like neverending plotting instead of moving the narrative forward. It ultimately leads to a bloated and punishingly talky second half to set up all moving pieces for the climax, which doesn’t neatly wrap up its story. It prefers to abruptly end to showcase an elongated post-credits scene with even more elaborate martial arts choreographies than what the film itself demonstrated.

Hey, I’ll take more Hark-choreographed martial arts sequences any day, but I long for the times when his scripts had more substance than haphazardly constructed plotting to set up for the (potential) next chapter in the franchise. Still, one can’t argue that he has forever changed the landscape of modern action cinema and has redefined the artistic qualities of a genre that, before he showed the world what he was capable of, was labeled as nothing more than “popcorn entertainment.” Action is the only form of emotional catharsis worthy of being experienced on a larger-than-life screen. Tsui Hark fundamentally understands this. That’s why he’ll always be in a league ahead of his contemporaries, even if Legends of the Condor Heroes: The Gallants will end up as one of his weakest efforts from his staggering filmography. 

Grade: B-

Director: Christopher Andrews
Writer: Christopher Andrews, Jonathan Hournigan
Stars: Christopher Abbott, Barry Keoghan, Nora-Jane Noone

Synopsis: An Irish shepherding family thrust into battle on several fronts: internal strife, hostility within the family, rivalry with another farmer.

Christopher Andrews’ furious, gripping directorial debut Bring Them Down is far from being a car crash in execution and quality, but it’s certainly fitting that it begins with one. Before the film’s opening titles appear against a foreboding, stormy landscape that feels entwined with the tone that persists over the course of the next 106 minutes, we see a car careening down a dusty back road somewhere in western Ireland. Based on how cinematographer Nick Cooke’s camera cuts between the vehicle’s passengers addressing someone who is behind the wheel, we understand that Michael (Christopher Abbott) is driving, and doing so in a steadily increasing fit of rage. That’s because his mother (Susan Lynch) has informed him that she intends to leave his father, and thus Michael, as she can no longer take the darkness buried within the former. Despite her best efforts to calm him from the backseat, Michael’s girlfriend Caroline (Grace Daly) can’t extinguish his own internal fire, one that is automatically doused in kerosene the second it’s lit. Unable to control his anger, Michael resorts to pressing his foot until the gas pedal reaches the floor. It’s a far more dangerous iteration of a man’s tendency to punch his pillow in an effort to release their inner wrath, and its outcome carries consequences that can’t possibly compare to the mutable dents briefly left in a beaten cushion. 

Michael’s careless conduct on the road results in one death and two serious injuries, which isn’t a spoiler so much as it is an important footnote that the story returns to, a pivotal prologue that fuels much of the ire donned by the film like a proudly-earned scar. Bring Them Down’s early tragedy – its first and least bloody of the many that follow – has the qualities of a gravitational pull, one that holds  Michael over life’s burning coals, but perhaps it only seems that way because of everything else it caused. Caroline (played by Nora-Jane Noone once the film jumps forward in time to the present day) has left Michael for his neighbor and sheep-farming rival Gary (Paul Ready), with whom she shares a son named Jack (Barry Keoghan). While she has seemingly moved on, Michael still lives in his childhood home with his father, Ray (Colm Meaney), an incapacitated old man who wasn’t in the accident that killed his wife and Michael’s mother, but still carries the pain from its outcome along with a litany of ailments that keep him confined to a chair. He can no longer work on the farm, leaving Michael to deal with duties meant for two able-bodied people. When Ray does feel the need to get involved, Michael must literally carry his father on his back from one point to another.

These circumstances tend to leave Michael, and Michael alone, to deal with any conflicts that arise, and the one that spurs the events of Bring Them Down is merely the beginning. While it might sound trite, the act of stealing a few prized sheep from another farmer’s flock is no small snipe in a modest community, and when Jack does exactly that, Michael’s immediate response, as is natural in his circumstances, is one of hostility. He gets in Jack’s face, which leads to Gary getting in Michael’s, and so on, though these men aren’t known solely for their barks. Their bites, in fact, are more reminiscent of snarling chomps, those that create gashes in the hands of the recipient, and each party here ends up on the receiving end of Andrews’ plethora of pain at least once during the remainder of his debut’s runtime. Make no mistake: This is a frigid film, one that is followed by a storm cloud as it unfolds, and while it isn’t always pouring rain on its characters, the threat remains. 

Thankfully, Andrews possesses the wherewithal as a filmmaker to commit to his film’s dark tone in a calculated manner that doesn’t make it come off as trauma porn, never affording it the opportunity to revel in its inherent anguish. Instead, Bring Them Down is a heartbreakingly grim piece of work that examines – buzzword alert – toxic masculinity without taking a side in the debate, insofar as there is much of an argument regarding how productive any semblance of toxicity can be in the undying conflict between competitors. It wields a bloodsoaked blade, not as a toy, but as a reminder of what can come of your actions when they go unchecked. “Unfiltered” may be an even more applicable term, as most of the horrifying acts each of Andrews’ characters commit seem meant to be accompanied by gasps and groans from the film’s audience, a verbal acknowledgement that these broken men should really think before they act.

But that wouldn’t leave much room neither for the dizzyingly dour proceedings to carry the weight that they ultimately do, nor for the squabble at the film’s center to feel like its circumstances are of the life-or-death variety. What helps is Andrews’ attention to his locale and its specificities, from the look of the landscapes to the Gaelic tongue that Michael and Ray tend to communicate through. (While Abbott was born in Connecticut, he manages to convincingly inhabit the tortured soul of an Irish lad; the native Keoghan naturally fits right in.) While a lesser work operating in a similar tonal register might reek of desperation as it attempts to remain ruthless for nearly two hours, Andrews and his cast use their surroundings to their benefit, the muddy fields and small homes representing the confines of an inescapable wartime reality. While war can end in one side’s surrender and limited bloodshed, that’s rare in comparison to the many bouts that come to blows with only one emerging victorious from the crumpled pile of bodies victorious. It’s a kill or be killed world, Bring Them Down argues. Mercifully, it never picks a side, and doesn’t ask us to, either.

Grade: B+

Director: Matt McClung
Writer: Matt McClung
Stars: Anna Jacoby-Heron, Josh Andrés Rivera, Kevin Nealon

Synopsis: A young woman moves in with her lapsed Catholic boyfriend, only to discover that they’re being haunted by the vengeful ghost of his childhood youth minister.

In order for religious horror to be successful you have to make the lapsed church-goer clutch their chest for a pendant that’s no longer there. You have to give them such a spectacle that for the run time of your film they question everything they have come to believe since falling away from the beliefs they held. The same is true for spiritual/new age horror. You have to make people suddenly wonder if their friend who burns sage and keeps an amethyst stone clutched in their hand at moments of stress isn’t totally out there.

Inhabitants attempts to have its way with both and it never quite finds its footing. That isn’t to say the conceit and the tension between Olivia (Anna Jacoby-Heron) and Francis’ (Josh Andrés Rivera) different worldviews isn’t an intriguing twist on the genre. It just muddies the waters of what we’re meant to be scared of. Should we worry that Olivia’s rituals are causing the disturbance? Or should we worry that because Francis is living in sin, vengeance is being wrought upon him? It’s not made clear for a long time, which is a problem with the pacing of the film.

The vibe of Inhabitants is definitely setting us up for what we assume is a poltergeist. Then it shifts to possible possession. Then it’s a sort of plain haunting. There is so much to the mystery that Inhabitants never really gets to the point. There is no jump scare or climax that makes you crawl out of your skin. Inhabitants never makes you want to hide behind your hands. It goes through the motions of the supernatural horror film, but never gives us the real thrill. 

A lot of potential scares are left on the table. There’s a scene where Olivia calls home and her parents, whose objections to her lifestyle are never fully explained, are sitting still staring at the walls as the phone rings. What could they possibly be thinking or doing? Or is that just Olivia’s perception of them? We just don’t know because the tension fails to mount beyond the weirdness of the image. 

In the tensest and potentially scariest scene, there are jump cuts that build to a climax. Olivia is putting the finishing touches on dinner and listening to music on headphones. Francis has gone to the bathroom to trim his pubic hair at Olivia’s request. The boiler is sabotaged by the spirit to make a frightening noise. The problem is that by the time the action gets to the point where Francis accidently jabs the scissors somewhere into his genitals, we never know where, which is so much the better, we’ve already anticipated the action for too long for it to be effective. It never scares us in the way it wants, but it is intentionally funny in ways you don’t expect.

The film needs to lean far more into its comedic elements. There are genuinely funny lines and sequences. The film is also funny without making fun. Denny (Kevin Nealon) the owner of the new age shop where Olivia works is a goof, but what he does doesn’t make him goofy. Lillian (Ana Arthur), Francis’ devout Christian mother, is a little too much, but is never shamed for her beliefs. If writer/director Matt McClung had leaned into the “Scooby-Doo” of the situation it could have made the film infinitely better than this attempt at something scary.

As it is, Inhabitants is a scary story without any scares. The film has the DNA, but none of the execution. Even its climax, at the apex of the haunting, after we know the whole truth, the resolution is tepid. The characters are too underdeveloped for us to really feel anything for them in spite of the actor’s proficient job with the script. If we can’t get behind them all the way or see the full picture of who they want to be, the whole thing falls apart. There isn’t a plot hole or a piece left unexplained, but it still feels very incomplete. The film is fine, but if you’re looking for scary religious horror, you may want to look elsewhere.

Grade: C

Director: Martin Campbell
Writers: Matthew Orton, Simon Uttley, Paul Andrew Williams
Stars: Daisy Ridley, Clive Owen, Ray Fearon

Synopsis: Criminal activists hijack a gala, taking 300 hostages. One extremist plans mass murder as a message to the world. An Ex-soldier turned window cleaner now works to rescue the hostages.

Cleaner is uniquely entertaining as it unravels from a high-stakes crime heist to a full-blown action thriller set in modern-day London. Centered around the life of an always running late, foul-mouthed ex-soldier who now cleans windows 50 floors up. While the film is sold as an action thriller, there’s plenty of heart to Cleaner that leaves a lasting impression long after guns blaze. Unfortunately where the action shines, the narrative complicates a rather straight and simple premise. If there’s anything to be said, it’s that Daisy Ridley was made for action.

Audiences first met Joey Locke (Ridley) in a flashback showing a family life that is nothing short of toxic. As she’s listening in on an argument between her loved ones, she’s climbing the cupboards of her home to escape her surroundings. Cleaner establishes early on that Joey has a troubled family life, yet highlights the importance her older brother Michael (Matthew Tuck) has, as the camera lingers on a photo of them. From a young age, Joey is shown to be a highly skilled climber with an ability to get herself out of situations when needed.

Flash ahead to the present day, Joey is a window cleaner for an powerhouse energy company run by two brothers, Geoffrey Milton (Rufus Jones) and Gerald Milton (Lee Boardman). As she is running late, which is made to seem like her normal behavior, she is interrupted by a family emergency about her older brother. True to form, Joey races to her brother’s aid, taking him to work with her for the day. Joey’s job flat-out sucks; her bosses are jerks who talk down to her, and the owners of the company give their employees little relief. In one of the best moments of the movie that highlights Joey’s empathy, the film makes a point to show her care for others.. In a cramped elevator with a pregnant coworker, she sticks up for her when their CEO makes a nasty remark about her working while heavily pregnant.

As Joey clocks in for another late shift, with her brother safely on the first floor, she begins to clean the windows. A job at first is played for laughs, cleaning bird messes that no one else wants to, but later in the film is used to Joey’s advantage. But this day is not like any other, as the Milton brothers are hosting an important gala that will soon be taken over by radical activists with their deadly intent hidden behind colorful masks. Joey, trapped outside, must use her military background to save the building filled with 300 hostages, one being the most important person in her life. Cleaner is not afraid to ramp up the stakes, not wasting a single bullet when it counts.

Where this film truly shines is with its lead Daisy Ridley, who not only has a heartfelt sincerity when admitting to her brother she wasn’t always the best sister but also an impressive physical presence. There are many action pieces in this film in which Ridley is hanging off the side of a building, yet still landing her lines with force. Plus, plentiful amounts of hand-to-hand fights are featured where she outsmarts her opponents at each turn, but not without getting banged up herself. Ridley brings an earnestness to Joey with her dedicated physical performance and empathetic nature. Often, her performance outshines the rest of the cast, leading to one-sided dialogue that would hit harder emotionally if paired better.

What took me by surprise in Cleaner was the relationship between Joey and her brother Michael, who is on the spectrum. Both siblings are talented in their own right, with her brother being a genius computer hacker who carries an emotional support object with him, resembling Thor’s mighty hammer, Mjolnir. They have a complicated relationship that is explored through their bonded history with abusive parents, with Joey’s brother Michael taking the brunt of the abuse. There’s a genuine admiration for each other as they work through their shared trauma together all while the clock races.

Cleaner takes place almost entirely at One Canada Square, Canary Wharf in London, a 50-story high-rise building. It is seen from three perspectives: those who work there, those who own it, and those who see it as corrupt. Each viewpoint is only slightly explored, leaving many questions regarding their outcomes. Once the audience enters the building with Joey, we know there is no leaving peacefully for the 300 hostages. Campbell, along with Director of Photography, Oliver Loncraine, succeeds at a feeling of claustrophobia, enabling us to feel as one of the 300. The film shows the skyline only a few times to give a true idea of the scale of the building, leading to moments where Joey is left stranded on a lift several floors up only to be lost in the lack of depth in the frame. Visually, the building does its job to a degree; but nothing that truly captures that it’s the third tallest building in the United Kingdom.

Director Martin Campbell is no stranger when it comes to action, with Casino Royale, GoldenEye, and more recently The Protégé under his belt; he no doubt knows the genre well. Cleaner benefits from strong action pieces that are amplified by the heist aspect. The fights are engaging, making choices difficult for the film’s lead to choose, as the ideal and safest outcomes seem impossible to achieve. Unfortunately, the script leaves bits to be desired, with too many ideas going on to let any of them truly flourish. There’s an interesting story in there to be told, with energy companies facing the public as clean but being corrupt, and those fed up taking a stand, but it gets shuffled into a crowded deck.

Overall, Cleaner feels like a modern gender-bent version of Die Hard that showcases how versatile Daisy Ridley is as an actor. Campbell has a strong ability to build tense action but falls short with a narrative that is only there half of the time. Here’s to hoping Cleaner isn’t the last time we see Ridley bashing in faces with a monkey wrench.

Grade: B-

Director: Julius Onah
Writer: Rob Edwards, Malcolm Spellman, Dalan Musson
Stars: Anthony Mackie, Harrison Ford, Danny Ramirez

Synopsis: Sam Wilson, the new Captain America, finds himself in the middle of an international incident and must discover the motive behind a nefarious global plan.

There are simply no real human cinematic stakes in Captain America: Brave New World. The title suggests a new phase or chapter in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. However, the film lacks excitement, suspense, and intrigue. While some may appreciate its brisk runtime and lack of complexity, the plot is shallow, and, at under two hours, the action remains generic and, at times, a yawn-inducing been there, done that kind of way.

And, to make matters worse, Captain America: Brave New World takes itself too seriously without any reason, and is  not being particularly compelling in any way. 

Captain America: Brave New World opens with Sam Wilson (The Hurt Locker’s Anthony Mackie), the new Captain America, tracking an illegal sale of adamantium—the rare metal bonded to Wolverine’s skeleton and claws—in the heart of Mexico. Alongside Joaquin Torres (Top Gun: Maverick’s Danny Ramirez), aka Falcon, they thwart Sidewinder’s ( Giancarlo Esposito, reprising his role from The Falcon and the Winter Soldier) plan.

In recognition of his efforts, President-elect Thaddeus Ross (Harrison Ford) invites Sam to the White House under the guise of a job well done. He brings Torres and Isaiah Bradley (Carl Lumbly) to mend ties with a country that once turned its back on them. However, during a speech, Isaiah unexpectedly attempts to assassinate the President-elect.  After a tense chase, Sam catches up to the aging super soldier—only to discover that Isaiah has no memory of his actions.

Captain America: Brave New World is from the director Julius Onah, the man who directed one of the best films of 2019, Luce, a film that was a deeply layered, strategic thriller whose take on White guilt and Black existentialism is always at a thoughtful boil. There was an opportunity for Brave New World to engage with similar themes and, at times, it comes close. In one scene, Ford’s President Ross pointedly tells Mackie’s Sam that he is no Steve Rogers, bringing race into the conversation—especially in light of Isaiah Bradley’s history. 

However, the film quickly abandons this subject matter. As you watch, it becomes evident that the script went through multiple rewrites, stripping away anything compelling in favor of a formulaic, CGI-heavy spectacle that follows the standard comic book movie playbook beat by beat. The script has five credited writers—Rob Edwards, Malcolm Spellman, Dalan Musson, Julius Onah, and Peter Glanz—raising the question of why anyone expected this new chapter to match the emotional complexity and conflict of Captain America: Civil War. After all, the lead script credit belongs to a writer from Netflix’s Full House revival.

Instead, Captain America: Brave New World is an extension to one of Marvel’s most misused storylines—The Hulk—while setting up Thunderbolts and delivering one of the most underwhelming post-credit scenes in MCU history. The film is overloaded with exposition for those who may have forgotten Bruce Banner’s past, the lost history of The Eternals, and the interconnected Disney+ series, yet these references feel primarily meaningless.

It made me wonder whether this film was simply a way to tie up loose ends from previous Marvel projects that the studio has no real intention of revisiting. This makes you wonder what the point of this entry is. It doesn’t seem to have any reason to exist besides being a bridge. When you have two iconic African-American comic superheroes with so much to offer with deep, thematic storylines, only to whittle them down to a story about the Red Hulk, with tired storylines about listening to both sides screaming from the aisles politically?

Captain America: Brave New World may still work for you if you’re a diehard fan of the studio and the comics. However, for those expecting something more substantial, the film feels like leftovers—reheated and lacking real depth. The only thing this comic book film assembles is boredom, a humdrum Marvel experience if there ever was one. The storyline of Sam Wilson and Carl Lumbly’s Isaiah Bradley deserved far better than this watered-down take on these essential comic book heroes.

You can watch Marvel’s Captain America: Brave New World only in theaters February 14th!

Grade: C-