Inconsistent Halloween saves its best for last

Jamie Lee Curtis in Halloween. Image courtesy Universal Pictures.

The redeeming factor for the wildly inconsistent Halloween sequel is the ferocity of its female lead. Laurie Strode was a fighter in the first film, trading blows and stabs with a monster. The new film makes it clear that Halloween night 40 years ago haunts her now as it did then, but the extra years have done nothing to temper Laurie Strode's tenacity. Without her resolve and strength, Halloween circa 2018 would be little more than high-budget fan fiction.

Eliding over the events from movies two, four, five, six, seven, and eight, Halloween opens with a pair of podcasters (Rhian Rees and Jefferson Hall) revisiting the horror in Haddonfield 40 years on. After failing to get a word from Michael Myers (played by both original actor Nick Castle and James Jude Courtney), they visit Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) who is still scarred from that night. She lives alone in the woods, alienated from her daughter Karen (Judy Greer) and granddaughter Allyson (Andi Matichak) and preparing for another encounter with Myers. Myers, meanwhile, is being transferred to a new mental health facility, much to the protestation of his psychiatrist Dr. Sartain (Haluk Bilginer). For the second time in 40 years, something goes awry and Myers is loose again in Haddonfield, pursued by Strode, Sartain, and the weary Officer Hawkins (Will Patton). 

 

For much of Halloween, the question that drives much of the action is the why behind Michael Myers' wanton murder. Like the first movie, this Halloween offers little to no explanation (although much conjecture) for why the monster is a monster, which is for the best. Once the first set of sequels tried to connect Myers to a strained motivation it soured the character, and a monster without any apparent reason is far more horrifying than one with familial problems. But this movie goes too far into the other direction, painting Myers as more of a shark than a boogeyman. The scenario becomes predictable midway through the movie; Myers enters the house, murders the occupant (usually a woman) by surprise, then walks out to find his next victim. It's designed to be somewhat comedic, especially in the manner Myers so quickly dispatches of his victims, but it paints Myers as mindless instead of calculating. There's no intelligence or cleverness to his actions, and it removes much of Myers' mystique. Even if the audience never knew exactly why he picked Laurie and her friends, there was an intent somewhere that was pretty horrifying to think about. 

 

Halloween sheds the elegance and nuance of its predecessor and wraps itself instead in a bothersome coat of bluntness. Director David Gordon Green takes the basics of the original and ramps up the murders, showing as much gore and blood as he can. Green occasionally shows his horror chops on a few kills – highlighted by a rather effective sequence involving motion-detecting lights – but the murders become less and less intricate and the gore becomes greater and greater to compensate for the lack of imagination in the framing. The body count in Halloween is high enough to cause the shock factor wears off and the movie drags to get to the highly anticipated final showdown.

The path to the finale is pretty rough. Green and co-writers Danny McBride and Jeff Fradley ended up with a rather funky script that doesn't meld the horror, comedy, and meta-comedy particularly well. It's tough to tell exactly what Halloween is designed to be, especially in the sequences that exist solely because of horror clichés. An argument could be made for parody, but there isn't enough of it in the rest of the film to consider these as much more than storytelling laziness. And the character motivations are all over the map, with folks changing who they are just to carry the movie forward. Dr. Sartain in particular has a strange, unconvincing arc that does more to connect Laurie and Myers than establish him as a character. 

 

Ultimately that showdown between Laurie and Myers is all that matters for Halloween. Green treats the rest of the mayhem caused by Myers as a means to an end, steps for the film to reconnect these two after four decades apart. The battle between Myers and the Strode women is fraught with intensity and fright, a mother fighting against a monster to save her daughter and granddaughter. Curtis is great in this sequence, resurrecting the ferocity that defined Laurie Strode 40 years ago while adding decades of pent-up rage to her battle against Myers. Laurie is fighting as a mother, a victim, a warrior, and a survivor, putting everything she has against Myers and then some to end 40 years of bad dreams and misery. The showdown isn't perfect – Green can't help but through a couple of unnecessary references in that throw off the pacing – but it's still a helluva ride and about as good of an ending as this movie could have.

Review: Three and a half out of Five Stars

Click here to see the trailer.

Rating: R

Run time: 106 minutes

Genre: Horror

tl;dr

What Worked: Scares, Jamie Lee Curtis, final showdown

What Fell Short: Character motivations, too many in jokes

What To Watch As Well: Halloween

First Man a stunning trip through space and time

Ryan Gosling in First Man. Image courtesy Universal Pictures.

The driving force of First Man isn't the figure at the center of the movie. The biography of the first man to step foot on the moon is a justification for the filmmakers to take the audience through a visually stunning journey into space. It's a dream and an example of wish fulfillment, the hope of achieving something beyond the realm of a possibility for eons. That the man who actually took those first steps is otherwise unspectacular proves one of the points of the film; dreams don't belong to the most talented, but to the dreamers with drive and tenacity.

First Man provides a snapshot of the life of Neil Armstrong, the eponymous American astronaut played by Canadian Ryan Gosling. The movie opens with Armstrong working as a test pilot in 1961, living a quiet life with his wife Janet (Claire Foy) and children. After the death of their daughter Karen, Neil applies to work as a pilot on the Gemini program, the precursor to the Apollo missions to reach the moon. The ensuing years up to 1969 are a series of trial and errors for NASA and the multitude of scientists and pilots (played by a collection of character actors like Ciarán Hinds, Kyle Chandler, Corey Stoll, Lukas Haas, Jason Clarke, Ethan Embry) who put their lives at risk to get to the moon.

There is a soupcon of jingoism inherent in that description, a sense of American exceptionalism director Damien Chazelle and writer Josh Singer grapple with throughout the film. Some of the issue is just the setting, as it seems highly difficult to make a movie about the 1960s without associating it with some levels of idealism and hope. Chazelle and Singer try to cut through it by tossing references to protests against NASA and the space program on the outskirts, which don't succeed at tempering the accidental patriotism but do add a political action this movie didn't intend to have. To avoid being too dangerously patriotic, the filmmakers teased a part of their history that should have been either directly approached or ignored for the sake of storytelling.

Then again, the film is not really about how man landed on the film. Based on the title, it would appear First Man is about Armstrong and his heroics, about what it takes to launch oneself into orbit. Yet the movie doesn't delve much into Armstrong because Armstrong doesn't really delve into himself. As written by Singer and played by Gosling, Armstrong isn't a traditional square-chinned patriot or some mythical being. Rather, he's stoic and reserved, hiding his true thoughts and concerns inside of himself. Armstrong is taciturn (a trait Gosling has perfected at portraying) whose greatest strength as a pilot and greatest weakness as a human is detachment and an otherworldly cool. The depiction is something of a mixed bag. It keeps Armstrong grounded as a person, evading some ugly hero worshiping that has dinged other biopics and resulting in an interesting character because of the silence. If Armstrong is heroic, it's because of his actions, not his personality. The problem arises because the stoicism reflects against Janet, who is not fleshed out enough as a character to fully combat Armstrong's quiet. Janet instead is something of a trope, the supportive wife who has that one moment of verve before returning to her station, safe in the thought that she at least did something. Chazelle and Singer do offer her a decent amount of solo time, but they don't use it particularly well to build up her character. 

 

This would be more of an issue if First Man was really about Armstrong. It is nominally about the man, but the point is less that Neil Armstrong was the first man on the moon, but there was a person there at all. Armstrong is necessary because he was the first, but Chazelle and Singer are far more interested in bring audiences up to the moon with him. Armstrong himself is effectively a vessel to get to the stars, a justification for Chazelle and cinematographer Linus Sandgren to take audiences to space. The trips to space veer wildly from sublime peace to pure horror when the danger lights start up and the sounds of imminent failure start blaring across the rickety hunks of metal thrown into space. But the best moment is the landing on the moon and the first steps on the surface, when the film and the audience are stunned into silence, caught up by the majesty of the moment.

Review: Four and a half out of Five Stars

Click here to see the trailer.

Rating: PG-13

Run time: 141 minutes

Genre: Biography

tl;dr

What Worked: Cinematography, Acting, Pacing

What Fell Short: Incomplete characterization for Janet Armstrong, political commentary

What To As Well: From the Earth to the Moon, Apollo 13

Sisters Brothers a ponderous, existential Western

Joaquin Phoenix and John C. Reilly in The Sisters Brothers. Image courtesy Annapurna Pictures.

There ain't much that moves fast in The Sisters Brothers. Aside from the rapid gunfights and the trigger fingers of its stars, the movie mostly takes its time to set up the action, drifting from scene to scene with a simple, logical flow. Sometimes the wandering begins to feel more like meandering, but The Sisters Brothers mostly takes fully advantage of the time it gives itself, telling a philosophically heavy story about family and dreams complete with violence and some wicked dark humor. 

 

John C. Reilly and Joaquin Phoenix star as the eponymous siblings/legendary Oregonian gunslingers Eli and Charlie, respectively. They work for the wealthy, powerful, and mysterious Commodore (Rutger Hauer), who sends them on a mission to kill chemist Hermann Kermit Warm (Riz Ahmed), a pseudo-prophet with ambitions of building paradise in Dallas. Assisting the Sisters is detective John Morris (Jake Gyllenhaal), who becomes entranced by Hermann's message, humility, and abundant love of humanity. Hermann and John travel to San Francisco in search for gold, although Eli and Charlie pursue them relentlessly. Along the way the Sisters must overcome nature, alcoholism, and a rival gang of bounty hunters under the orders of the powerful Mayfield (Rebecca Root).

Despite a fairly action packed and dramatic opening, The Sisters Brothers is far more about the adventure of the journey than the mission. It's an existential trip through the woods of Oregon and California, with discussions ranging from fathers and horses to changing the world one commune at a time. Director Jacques Audiard, who wrote the adaptation alongside Thomas Bidegain, effectively winds the clock and lets the characters stumble into profundity and self discovery. For a Western in which brains and blood splatter everywhere, The Sisters Brothers spends significant time pondering the meaning of the violence.

All of the malaise results in The Sisters Brothers suffering from a notable genre malady. Westerns aren't known for telling stories quickly; the preference is to mosey toward a conclusion, minimizing the urgency to keep the audience in the same mindset as the characters. There isn't much else to do in the woods besides talk and think. When done well it's a great, often engaging cinematic technique, especially for movies with ambition and a lot of characters to corral. Sisters Brothers lingers a little too long in the second act though, going from an easy pace to a crawl before the calamity that ensues in the final act. Given the plot's lack of direction, a little more urgency transitioning from act two to act three would have done wonders for the film.

The issue is less of a true fault than an annoyance, because even with the slowdown the movie offers more time spent with the eponymous siblings. Charlie and Eli have a relationship that's equal parts destructive and supportive, enabling their very worst behaviors but saving each other from ever being too far gone. Charlie's a dangerous drunk, but Eli is around to keep him upright and on the horse. Eli is lonely and lacks the social ease of his brother, but Charlie is around to keep an eye out for his older brother. Reilly and Phoenix have a brilliant rapport with each other that makes their squabbles and bonding believable, and The Sisters Brothers gives them ample room to grow their relationship. 

 

At the same time, the film uses their discussions to contrast their wants and desires. Westerns are often driven by ambition, spurred from the historical pursuit of gold, opportunity, and the allure of the American Dream. As a result of fulfilling their Manifest Destiny, Westerns often reward characters for their ambition, emphasizing the theoretically heroic nature of the quest in which the wilds must be tamed. But unbridled ambition is a dangerous thing, luring otherwise smart and logical people to pursue quixotic schemes while ignoring the dangers of the situation, as is the case with Sisters Brothers. Charlie, John Morris, and Hermann seek greatness at the cost of their personal being, not caring about the potential for disaster.

Then there's Eli. Even though he is considered the lesser Sisters, Eli has the simplest, most direct vision of his life. He seeks neither fame nor fortune, but instead just wants a life with a small farm, a shop, and his brother at his side. Sisters Brothers shows him the greatest favor, because he is generally sweet and kind even amid his murderous sprees. Eli does his job very, very well, but he views it as a means toward a peaceful life. Even toward the end when the dynamic flips and Eli gains control the film prevents him from going too far, because this film isn't about the big dreamers like Charlie, Hermann, or John. It's about folks like Eli, whose wildest dream is the simplest life.

Review: Four out of Five Stars

Click here to see the trailer.

Rating: R

Run time: 121 minutes

Genre: Western

tl;dr

What Worked: Story, Dialog, Themes, John C. Reilly, Riz Ahmed

What Fell Short: Pacing of the second act

What To As Well: High Plains Drifter, Dead Man