Snowman never comes to life

Michael Fassbender in The Snowman. Image courtesy Universal Pictures.

The Snowman is an awful film on just about every level, but it masks its incompetence by being largely boring and dull. It’s just a way of wasting two hours of one's existence, watching poor Michael Fassbender mope around a very snowy Oslo searching for one of the least interesting serial killers in cinema history. It's a movie that just happens, it exists and it ends with no measurable effect on the viewer's outlook on life.

A lot of strange decisions were conjured to create The Snowman. Making the movie heavily centered around the titular beings of ice, snow, coal, carrots, and leftover winter clothing is among the more notable ones. The snowmen in this movie are little tokens left by the serial killer after he's abducted or murdered someone, designed to be ominous and foreboding. Except, well, snowmen don't really work as images of horror. They're beings of snow that just stand around waiting to melt, their horror derived more out of an existential terror than a more primal fright. Perhaps a field of snowmen could be frightening, a phalanx of creatures built of ice and snow with mean dark eyes and coal frowns… although just typing that sentence still makes them sound silly. If an army of snowmen can't produce any sense of fear, a single snowman won't succeed in that task.

So why does the killer design these snowmen in the first place? It's revealed in an opening sequence as a result of a traumatic childhood moment. It's not a competently executed sequence, with a poorly executed twist with no real motivation provided to the viewer. And that's not the only moment in which The Snowmen opts to keep what should be important information away from the viewers. Suspects are tossed out and in not because of any real detective work from Fassbender (playing a detective named Harry Hole) and his partner (played by Rebecca Ferguson). Rather, there's some unseen internal logic that at one moment makes J.K. Simmons a suspect before moving on to some other bloke until the real killer is revealed. There's also an undercooked subplot about Fassbender's ex (Charlotte Gainsbourg), along with unnecessary backstory involving Val Kilmer that would tie in cleaner with Ferguson's story if the movie had a stronger narrative connection. The Snowman is really more of a series of plot holes cobbled together into a thin story, which isn’t surprising considering around 15-percent of the script wasn’t actually shot, per director Tomas Alfredson.

Hypothetically the additional amount of footage would have given The Snowman more time to provide those clues so the audience can parse out the killer’s identity. Not that it's all that difficult to figure it out, but that isn't because of any clues or hints provided by the filmmakers. Rather, the resolution comes from knowledge of the genre that makes the whole reveal obvious; the movie itself just says it’s this guy without any legitimate clues, let alone any logic behind it. A clever movie can take advantage of audience knowledge and use it against viewers, but this movie is nowhere near clever enough to pull off such a feat. The killer is the killer, and the killer is disposed of with a lame Deus ex machina because the filmmakers opted not to make it properly climactic or thrilling. It just sort of ends, because everything has to end at some point and the movie couldn't figure out a better way of getting away from itself.

Review: One out of Five Stars

Click here to see the trailer.

Rating: R

Run time: 119 minutes

Genre: Crime

Ask Away

Target audience: Criminal procedural fans and people who like snowmen.

Take the whole family?: It gets graphic enough to bother kids, so make it a date night if you decide to go out...

Theater or Netflix?: Or just don't go out at all to see it.

Does this movie do anything right?: By name the cast is OK. Michael Fassbender, Charlotte Gainsbourg, and J.K. Simmons all have strong acting chops, and Val Kilmer has a couple of great performances under his belt from like 25 years ago. Figures that this movie couldn't do anything with the cast it had.

Watch this instead?: Insomnia does a lot of what The Snowman tries to do, but way, way better. There's also the animated Snowman movie from the 1980s that is just splendid.

Fear in short supply in Alien: Covenant

Katherine Waterston in Alien: Covenant. Image courtesy 20th Century Fox.

The biggest disappointment with Alien: Covenant – Ridley Scott's recent addition to the Alien franchise he kicked off nearly 40 years ago – is how little emotional reaction is earned from it. For a series that has, at its best, features staples in horror and action, Covenant gives little incentive for the viewer to grip onto anything for comfort. The things that go bump in the night in this franchise are no longer scary, or at least Scott and writers John Logan and Dante Harper can’t capture the elements that made these creatures so terrifying in the first place.

That concept of horror has been a constant for a franchise that has shifted dramatically in tone over the last four decades. Scott directed one of the best horror films of the '70s with his initial entry, while James Cameron used what Scott refined to craft an even better action flick with the sequel. Even Prometheus, the much maligned sequel and precursor to Covenant, is ambitious with its philosophical leanings and stabs at building a mythology for the featured beasts. But Covenant stretches the franchise's flexibility to its breaking point by trying to mix and match the tones of the previous films. Combining the philosophy that defines Prometheus with the horror elements of Alien and a little of the action aspects of Aliens doesn't mesh together as well as the filmmakers intended. The enormity of the ponderings about the meaning of existence aren't given enough time to develop nor gain the traction of the predecessor. What this film offers instead is limited to the mild musings of returning cynthetic David (Michael Fassbender), who shares his sentiments with a newer version of himself (also played by Fassbender) in an obviously onanistic function.

What really disappoints about Covenant are the attempts at invoking horror, the bedrock for the franchise and the aspect Scott himself mastered with the first installment. There is an inherent level of horror to the concept of Covenant, in which humans (played by Katherine Waterston, Danny McBride, Demián Bichir, Billy Crudup, Carmen Ejogo, and a collection of disposable parts) come across malevolent creatures far outside of their comprehension. It’s the fear of exploration, albeit one that is less terrifying as the idea of hateful gods depicted in Prometheus. Visiting a new land with hateful alien beings is disturbing; having one's creator actively turn against them is downright horrifying.

The existential fear never ascends to where it should, nor does the more primitive scares found in being trapped by a creature that goes bump in the night. This is horror 101, the fear of the monster under the bed and the reason why this franchise exists in the first place, yet Scott appears to have lost that ability to invoke those frights in 2017. The problems are fairly fundamental, easy to spot when compared with the original. The ship in this film, the titular Covenant, is a large, new starship built to traverse the stars to find a new planet, leaving ample room for the humans to run and hide if need be. Contrast that with the Nostromo from Alien, a smaller vessel that's been knocked around space for who knows how long. There are fewer places to hide on the Nostromo, more places for the monster to trap its victim and engage in acts of carnage. More problematic is how rushed the featured engagement is. Things go wrong quickly and are resolved even faster, the plan to rid the ship of the alien coming about too quickly and far too easily to offer actual scares for the viewer. The crew in Covenant is never given the opportunity to have the extermination plan go awry as they are in previous films, which cuts down on the film's ability to invoke some sympathy into their plight.

Most worrisome of all is the aesthetics for the aliens in Covenant. Scott and crew mess around a little with the design, essentially showing the creatures in several forms before finally settling on the classic creature, sort of like an expanded version of Alien: Resurrection. Several of them are doofy looking, lacking the creepy visual innuendo of the classic model and limited moreso by some less than stellar CGI. The digital divide between human and alien is clear and disappointing, missing those scenes in which the creature comes ever so close to tearing through the victim's flesh at any given moment. The monsters instead look cheap and act cheaper, leaving the viewer let down by the lack of innovation by the filmmakers.

Review: Two and a half out of Five Stars

Click here to see the trailer.

Rating: R

Run time: 122 minutes

Genre: Sci-Fi

Ask Away

Target audience: Anyone who have enjoyed the Alien series, including Prometheus.

Take the whole family?: The rating is a little strong – the violence isn't that much greater than some PG-13 movies and the sex is minimal – but still keep the really young kids at home.

Theater or Netflix?: Make it part of a Netflix evening.

How silly does this film get?: More than expected. The movie carries those bits of meta silliness from Prometheus that are kind of groan inducing. It is most notable in a scene featuring Michael Fassbender, Billy Crudup, a familiar looking pod, and assurances nothing bad will happen. The result is about what one would expect, and it makes Crudup's character look like a complete idiot.

Watch this instead?: Alien and Aliens are both great, and I'm still a defender of the messy and flawed but ambitious Prometheus. It is worth hitting up James Cameron's perturbing The Abyss.

Light Between Oceans cries its way through tedium

Alicia Vikander and Michael Fassbender think about crying in The Light Between Oceans. Image courtesy Disney.

While leaving the theater on Tuesday evening on the way to a train home I realized I couldn't actually remember the name of the movie I just watched. I had to look at my notes to come up with the title, The Light Between Oceans, which is so perfectly generic it flutters its way through the mind within an instant. It's a title that screams bland, offering no intrigue but wrapped in a heavy handed metaphor that clearly must mean something important. It doesn’t really mean all that much, nor does the film the title introduces to audiences. The actual film is equally unremarkable, concerning the travails of a lighthouse keeper and his wife somewhere in Australia (albeit filmed in New Zealand) in the 1920s. The Light Between Oceans flirts with mediocrity, falling a slight step below that mark.

Occasions arise when the film bobs into charming in the first act, when stars Michael Fassbender and Alicia Vikander reveling in their wedded bliss in a satisfactory sequence that, sadly, teases a more interesting film. (At least, more interesting than the one director Derek Cianfrance, who also wrote the adaptation from the novel, delivers.) Their bliss, coming after a short romance between Fassbender's lonely and guilt-driven lighthouse keeper Tom Sherbourne, and Vikander's local girl Isabel, is sweet and endearing, showing off the inherent decency of Fassbender's Tom and the liveliness of Vikander's Isabel. It's akin to the Julia Childs half of Julie & Julia, a portrait of a loving couple that captivates from the magnetism between Meryl Streep and the perpetually underrated Stanley Tucci. Vikander and Fassbender don't quite have that level of rapport, but they do make for a enviable couple for the film's moderately endearing first act. And at least the early parts of the relationship explain how a couple living alone at a lighthouse can handle the isolation; they have each other, and that's just about all they need for a spell.

The Light Between Oceans starts to sink in act two, once Vikander becomes obsessed with motherhood – representing a fairly notable reversal in her previously noted personality – and the couple's decision to claim a lost infant as their own. It's at this point when the water works begin to flow and Vikander and Fassbender ugly cry as often as possible. (They're joined later by Rachel Weisz as the child's real mother; she more than holds her own in this contest.) The tears come across as more phony than real, presented in a more cinematic scope than as an organic reaction to the situations the characters find themselves in. It’s staged weeping built for award shows and to show the photogenic stars in a vulnerable state of mind, although it does sometimes feel as if the characters are infected by a terminal case of snot face.

What Cianfrance wants is a presentation of inner turmoil, with the morally rigid Tom debating the rightness of their decision. Yet Cianfrance doesn't appear to know how to accomplish that goal in an interesting fashion (ugly crying excluded); he doesn't focus enough on Tom's inner turmoil, and his efforts to toss in montages akin to the early days falters because of how poorly Cianfrance addresses the proverbial elephant in the room. Not like he didn’t have time to deal with this issue considering how much the film begins to drag in the final two thirds, lollygagging through a long second act and an interminable third act brightened solely by the reminder that Bryan Brown is still alive. Whatever point Cianfrance wanted to bring up in The Light Between Oceans exists somewhere within the morass of his final two acts and involves guilt, sins and temptation on some level presented without passion or excitement.

The Light Between Oceans is something of a tease. It's a movie about a lighthouse keeper in an era when lighthouses were vital that incorporates little of the dangers or interests the position has. It presents child abduction in an utterly boring way. It offers an interesting debate of the definition of parenthood, only to skirt away from the issue to push the plot forward. It comes close, sometimes, to resembling interesting, only to step away and test the audience's patience in the process. There isn't much more to say about The Light Between Oceans except to remark upon its frustrating fugacity and shrug.

Review: Two out of Five Stars

Click here to see the trailer.

Rating: PG-13

Run time: 132 minutes

Genre: Drama 
 

Ask Away

Target audience: People searching for ersatz prestige flicks.

Take the whole family?: Far too boring for kids to handle.

Theater or Netflix?: Just stay home and wait for it to come to you.

Academy Awards odds?: About time to break this thing out for the ramp up to Oscar season. I don't think this will do any real damage in the main categories, but the film does have some very solid costuming reflecting the era that might just justify a nomination.

Watch this instead?: It's tough to find a good film that matches The Light Between Oceans, so I'll go instead with A Simple Plan, Sam Raimi's terrific slow burn of a thriller about four people who quickly end up over their heads. It also does a better job of showing how guilt can become such an insidious little thing when it comes to illegal activities.

The dangers of social climbing

Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard star in "Macbeth." Image courtesy The Weinstein Company.

The very first shot in the new film adaptation of “Macbeth” is an attempt to explain the ensuing wicked deeds of the titular character and his wife. It’s not the sole narrative shift the film takes from the play, but it sets an off-kilter, moderately anachronistic tone for this adaptation that keeps the dialogue while changing the characters’ motivations radically and not to the film’s benefit.

“Macbeth” stars Michael Fassbender as the eponymous Scot, whose bravery and ferocity as a warrior are second only to his loyalty to the king, Duncan (David Thewlis). After stunting an uprising alongside friend Banquo (Paddy Considine), the pair is visited by four witches who tell Fassbender he will become both the thane of Cawdor and the future king of Scotland while Considine will be the father of a line of kings. Fassbender and Considine are confused at first by the seers' fortune, but the fates begin to play their hand when Fassbender receives his promotion moments after the confrontation with the witches.

The coincidence is notable enough to convince Lady Macbeth (a very good Marion Cotillard) of her husband's grander future, and she persuades Fassbender to commit regicide to advance up the ranks. He's hesitant to participate until Thewlis proclaims the meek Malcolm (Jack Reynor) will succeed him on the throne. Once the act most foul is done and Reynor runs away in terror, Fassbender is named king and accomplishes everything he set out to do. The hard part though is keeping the dream, and he worries about the witches' prophecy about Considine's children, as do additional bodements about his downfall from the throne involving a possible heel turn from the good Macduff (Sean Harris).

What happens next is what one expects from a Shakespeare play, with the man’s paranoia serving as the means to his inevitable downfall. The debate over how much control the fates have over a person’s life remain in the film adaptation, along with the era-appropriate dialogue and sense of impending doom that swarms around Macbeth. The film version does take advantage of the medium though, showcasing the oft-beautiful (albeit infrequently used) Scottish/United Kingdom locales and staging large and impressive battle scenes scored with a screams and a heavy soundtrack. Blood flows relentlessly amid the skirmishes, and “Macbeth” doesn't shy away from showing the effects such brutality has on its participants; Fassbender and his fellow soldiers are covered in gashes and mud well after returning home from the war. The dirtiness works as a contrast to Thewlis' Duncan, who is garbed in fine white clothes as his men do the dirty work to protect his stature.

“Macbeth” would be a much more successful film had it limited the changes to the senses, but the desire to explain the plotting and reinterpret the Macbeth clan do far more harm than good. That opening image of the funeral mentioned earlier is proffered as the reason to the madness that eventually conquers Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, but it undermines that all too human sense of greed that drives the couple to murder for social advancement. The lust for power is strong to inspire such levels of evil; implementing a dead child as the justification is a cop out.

So it isn’t greed that drives Macbeth in this case; it’s loss and sorry and a need to atone for a family torn apart by the death of a child. The shift effectively reduces the cunning edge he develops after murdering Duncan; rather, savvy is exchanged for insanity that effectively removes the fault from his stars and shifting it to the fates. Considering the man is goaded into the act by his wife in the first place and Macbeth can pretty much blame the world for his actions and have some justification for it.

And then there’s poor Lady Macbeth, whose emotional complexity is stripped away by a film too eager to enter into pop psychology. Those undercurrents of fratricide that plague her during the planning in the play are gone, and the film opts to link her sudden illness death to an act of barbarity committed by Macbeth against Macduff's wife and children instead of Duncan's death. Macbeth's cruelty toward Macduff's family is revelatory for Lady Macbeth because it puts the monster she created on full display, but attaching it to a traditionally feminine concepts – family and innocence – erodes the strength behind her eventual madness. She transforms from an oak to a willow, with her expedited fall into eternal sleep taming material that’s better served with a little ferocity and bite.

Review: Three and a half out of Five Stars

Click here to see the trailer.

Rating: R

Run time: 113 minutes (One hour and 53 minutes)

Genre: Drama

Ask Away

Target audience: Lovers of Shakespearean drama and anyone down for a little war Scottish style.

Take the whole family?: “Macbeth” gets pretty bloody at times, but teens reading it for lit classes will be more than fine.

Theater or Netflix?: Wait for Netflix; the visuals are OK but just aren't strong enough to justify the additional expense.

Can you understand what’s being said?: Every now and then. The dialogue remains Shakespeare's, and the lines are delivered with thick accents by those involved, making for a rather tricky listening experience for viewers. Fortunately, the context of the situation remains easy to figure out, so it's easy to follow along even if a few lines fly well above your head.

Watch this as well?: I admittedly have a soft spot for Kenneth Branagh's adaptation of “Much Ado About Nothing.” Emma Thompson is wonderful as always, while Denzel Washington and Michael Keaton seem to have a lot of fun with the material. Plus Keanu Reeves flails at a British accent, which is always fun to watch.