Kin falls short of matching its ambitions

Myles Truitt in Kin. Image courtesy Lionsgate.

Kin has a scattered mind. The movie has a lot of ideas skittering around, topics it addresses fleetingly or inconsistently. There are plots and themes aplenty, but no vision for how to tell the story, nor a simple direction for the plot to go. That's the problem with a scattered mind; it goes all over the place without completing a single thought.

Kin has a lot it could be about. It's about a 14-year-old outcast named Eli (Myles Truitt) who stumbles upon alien technology. It's about his older brother and ex-con Jimmy (Jack Reynor) doing his best to evade the consequences of his action. It's about a single father (Dennis Quaid) doing the best he can to raise his sons. It's about the roaming exotic dancer Milly (Zoë Kravitz) learning to trust again. It's about psychotic gangster Taylor (James Franco) hellbent on revenge for his own fallen kin. It's about the destruction of a city. It's about bonding with family on the road. It's about the lies we tell to keep going in life. It's about bonding on the road. It's about doing the right thing when the opportunity arises to do it. It's about protecting one's family from their own worst habits. It's about getting lost in youth and growing up. It’s about how time on the road can bring people closer together. But Kin feels incomplete despite touching on so many themes. Because the movie can't commit to any of these stories and themes to tell a clean, coherent story or have a consistent narrative thread. It's shotgun art, the paint shot against the wall to create something resembling art, but instead coming out as splattered gunk in which brilliance is seen with the head tilted at the right angle and the eyes squinted just enough.

The fault lies with filmmakers Jonathan and Josh Baker, who adapted their short film Bag Man into this feature length flick. From watching the short, it's clear the Bakers couldn't come up with a clean method to translate a simple, direct 12-minute film into the 102 minute mess they came up with. The problem goes beyond the push to incorporate as many ideas as possible into the film to include the simple execution of their stories. Kin has one of the most egregious idiot plots in recent film history, in which a 14-year-old boy is duped into believing a whopper of a lie without questioning the motivation. Despite the circumstances that incite the lie, Eli's clear understanding of the people around him, and the illogical nature of sudden road trips, Eli never digs into Jimmy why they’re going on their trip. The reveal for Eli comes through in a clunky, awkward fashion that reinforces just how gullible Eli has been for almost two-thirds of the movie. There's no good reason for why the Bakers opted to make their central character so remarkably dim, but it ends up making him an uninteresting character, and it gives Truitt almost nothing to work with to build his character.

Then again, few characters in this film are allowed moments of depth or interest. Milly exists because the Bakers needed a woman in the narrative; she's not allowed to do anything noteworthy. Jimmy is selfish and stupid, hiding information from his brother for reasons that never make a lot of sense. Franco's character is designed to be weird and uncomfortable, a role he has succeeded at in the past. Yet Franco doesn't go far enough with the material he has, restraining himself from dipping into the madness the character justly deserves, and giving the movie the cartoonish villain it drastically needs to stave off the encroaching sense of boredom that hits after the first act.

By default some of this has to work. The first few moments of Eli navigating through a broken Detroit alone is graceful, and there are elements of the road trip between Eli and Jimmy that have a quiet charm to them. Kin does a decent enough job using montages to show the relationship between the strained siblings growing, eliding over unnecessary dialog. At least, it does with this story, because there is still plenty of fat dialog spreading all over the place, especially in the big, useless twist at the end telegraphed poorly by the Bakers. Kin offered the Bakers a chance to build a nice little universe, but they just don’t know how to use their space efficiently.

Review: Two out of Five Stars

Click here to see the trailer.

Rating: PG-13

Run time: 102 minutes

Genre: Sci-Fi

tl;dr

What Worked: The small moments on the road, the first shots of Eli

What Fell Short: The story, acting, premise, and James Franco

What To Watch As Well: Attack the Block, Chronicle, Spring Breakers

The Meg is boldly stupid

A giant shark cruises through the buffet in The Meg. Image courtesy Warner Bros.

The Meg is big, brash, and tremendously inane. It’s uninterested in the nuances of good storytelling or concepts of logic in its plot, and it shows a blatant disregard for character development. This movie is audacious in its stupidity, and comes pretty close to being outstanding because of it.

 

The concept driving The Meg is pretty simple. It's an enormous shark (the eponymous Megalodon) trying to eat Jason Statham, as Jason Statham tries not to be eaten. That Jason Statham is not eaten immediately is impressive considering how often he offers himself up as a snack, but he does put up a valiant fight against the Meg. Fortunately for the shark, Statham has a lot of friends (Bingbing Li, Sophia Cai, Rainn Wilson, Cliff Curtis, Winston Chao, Ruby Rose, Page Kennedy, Robert Taylor, Jessica McNamee, Ólafur Darri Ólafsson, Masi Oka) to nibble on as it chases after Statham; some are munched, while others watch their friends get chomped. It all builds up to a climax where Statham tries to go Ahab on the shark, which is very much as nature plans when it introduces a giant shark and Jason Statham to each other.

Technically there is more to the plot than Statham vs. enormous eating machine, but it's clear The Meg doesn't care how the man fought the shark. How the shark came to be in the first place is an example of science as magic, because throwing a chart on a computer and saying a shark escaped is just enough to keep the story going. Statham has a dark past with the shark, for reasons that don't make sense even in the film's universe. The romantic subplot between Statham and Li exists because it apparently needs to exist, even though the movie tosses in an ex-wife subplot with McNamee that ultimately means nothing to the plot. Rose’s character is a master of technology and hacking, which is easy to tell because her name is Jaxx. Wilson is a billionaire who makes terrible decisions, because it apparently takes a special kind of dumb to become that rich.

 

What all of these components have in common is a lack of originality. The Meg leans so heavily on numerous tropes it almost breaks the crutch. Point after point after point after point has been done in a far better fashion before. Even the film's shocks and scares have been done so often there's little surprise when the shark just pops out and starts nibbling on people. The filmmakers play it up a lot, showing characters tempting fate more and more and building up to the point when, finally, the shark comes around to start eating some fools. Director Jon Turteltaub is no Spielberg when it comes to building drama and emphasizing fear; if there is an occasion for the shark to come around, it will come around to bite a person or two in half as quickly as possible.

That would be a demerit for almost every other movie, yet it works for The Meg. Because The Meg is first and foremost about the shark, and investing too much time into things unrelated to the shark is inefficient and reduces the shark to screen ratio. There is a point to having an otherwise uninteresting movie, which is to showcase the eponymous prehistoric creature and watch as it invades a popular beach, gobbling up everyone in sight. And it's the simplicity of the delivery that makes the movie fun. There are no lessons to be learned from this movie, no great speeches to be had nor points about society and nature worth learning. Audiences want to see a giant shark attack Jason Statham, and the audience sees a giant shark attack Jason Statham. Where this movie fails as cinema it succeeds at spectacle and economics. 

 

Because of that, The Meg plays a dangerous game. The line between good dumb fun and bad dumb fun is super thin and easy to cross, a fate that has befallen similar movies like Snakes on a Plane and Sharknado. There are certain slower points, when the focus on the shark starts drifting away, where the film's numerous flaws become an actual problem. The movie ultimately rights itself though, reverting the viewer's attention back to Statham as he fights against the shark again. Watching Jason Statham fight a shark is not good cinema, but it makes for a fun enough matinee trip.

Review: Three and a half out of Five Stars

 

Click here to see the trailer.

Rating: PG-13

Run time: 113 minutes

Genre: Action

tl;dr

What Worked: The giant shark, Jason Statham

What Fell Short: Less than spectacular special effects, basic filmmaking

What To Watch As Well: Deep Blue Sea, Orca, Piranha

Christopher Robin short on plot, long on feels

Piglet, Pooh, Rabbit, Roo, Kanga, Tigger, and Eeyore in Christopher Robin. Image courtesy Disney

Christopher Robin never gets around to justifying its existence. From the outset, there was not a notable or interesting reason to revisit the titular boy after his adventures with Winnie-the-Pooh and friends concluded. He is defined by the innocence of his childhood and the curiosity that comes with it, as shown through his admittedly odd collection of anthropomorphic friends, and an adult version removes the childhood wonderment. As a result, the movie is pretty unexceptional, a term that is part insult and part compliment for a franchise in which the greatest adventures lie in the quotidian Ultimately, the disappointments of the movie's story are more than compensated for by the tale of friendship and the congenial tone that results in many smiles upon one's face.

Ewan McGregor stars as the eponymous character, now somewhere in his 30s and working as a bean counter at a luxury luggage company. He's dedicated to his job, much to the chagrin of his loyal wife Evelyn (Hayley Atwell) daughter Madeline (Bronte Carmichael). His plans for a weekend of rest and relaxation with his family are interrupted by a last-minute request by his boss Giles (Mark Gatiss) to shave 20 percent from the company's budget at the threat of losing his job. At the same time, Winnie-the-Pooh (voiced by Jim Cummings) has lost his friends Tigger (also Cummings), Eeyore (Brad Garrett), Kanga (Sophie Okonedo), Roo (Sara Sheen), Piglet (Nick Mohammed), Owl (Toby Jones) and Rabbit (Peter Capaldi) somewhere in the Hundred Acre Wood. A cinematic act of fate brings Pooh and Christopher Robin together again, each the only one who can help the other find what they are looking for.

Christopher Robin quite often evokes the best of the Winnie the Pooh franchise. Aside from Tigger's hyperactivity, the film's tone is calm and genial, focused on small moments and the profundity found within them. A simple party is a treasure, an event to be luxuriated in because of the company you're with and the memories that stay thereafter. There are few moments in life as pleasant as spending time with some very good friends, even if the occasion is a long goodbye. The themes of friendship in Christopher Robin ring very true. There's little to no sappiness or faux endearment in this movie; the fondness the characters have for one another are genuine and sweet. The room gets a little dusty when Pooh holds Piglet's hand, reassuring the scared creature that he is always needed. And even after 90-plus years of existence, Christopher Robin's friends remain as charming as ever. Piglet, Pooh, Eeyore (the film's MVP), Kanga, Roo, Owl, and Rabbit are a great collection of characters, quirky enough to have unique personalities but with an underlying love for one another despite their differences. Tigger can be a bit much, but the film holds his appearances back to reduce the scenery chewing inherent to his character. Christopher Robin makes it simple to see why it would be so difficult for the eponymous character to have to say goodbye, and how happy he would be to say hello again when they re-enter his life. 

 

The tremendously shallow story is Christopher Robin undoing. A grown up Christopher Robin forgoing his love of doing nothing is a trite narrative, compounded by the work-obsessed father forgoing his child plot. Hook did this more than 20 years ago now, as have pretty much every movie in which a character tries to recapture their childhood. The cliché would work if the movie had something interesting to say about the situation, but the film follows the tropes without expanding on them, using them as a crutch instead of a launching pad to something interesting. The pacing doesn't help this as well; the film spends so much time establishing Christopher Robin as a numbers-obsessed workaholic the inevitable dive back into pleasant times is rushed and unfulfilling.

That Christopher Robin focuses on Christopher Robin is to be expected. That the female characters are relegated as plot devices instead of people is disappointing. Despite her best efforts, Atwell's entire purpose in this movie is to chastise Christopher Robin for losing his laughter and lust for life, and there is little an actress can do with such a limited role. Carmichael's Madeline should at least serve as a mirror for Christopher Robin, but the film can only hint at the parallel without going into it because it allocates most of its time to Christopher Robin’s self discovery. Madeline is the great lost opportunity for this movie, the character who very well should be in the spotlight as much as Christopher Robin, if not more so.

There really isn't a great reason to see what happens to Christopher Robin as an adult. Christopher Robin doesn't provide the narrative justification for jumping ahead 30-odd years in his life, and the adventures Pooh and his friends have in this film does nothing to advance them as characters. Yet the film’s charm and goodwill override the lack of necessity. Sometimes, it's just nice to see some old, dear friends again.

Review: Three and a half out of Five Stars

Click here to see the trailer.

Rating: PG

Run time: 104 minutes

Genre: Family

tl;dr

What Worked: Brad Garrett as Eeyore, Jim Cummings as Pooh, the genial tone

What Fell Short: Narrative laziness, tropes

What To Watch As Well: Pete's Dragon, The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh