Speak No Evil, the disturbing Danish original that James Watkins’ American remake is based on, made my Top Ten when it debuted in 2022, in part because of how deeply affecting its unique brand of cringe-inducing psychological horror was. Part of what made Christian Tafdrup’s mannered but murderous satire on the social niceties we extend to strangers so sinister was its lack of physical violence. In its place was an escalating pattern of coercion that pushed boundaries further and further until suddenly: a ledge. The victims in the story were victims of their own complacency as much as the malice of their tormentors. The price they pay is high. Read More
It: Chapter Two, the highly anticipated sequel to 2017’s mega breakout hit It, is that impossibly rare horror sequel that is quite simply too big to fail. And you can damn well bet that the suits at Warner Bros are doing a high-kneed happy dance considering that, taken as a stand-alone film, It: Chapter Two is a bit of a slop-fest. Its unwieldy size and lack of editorial prowess makes for a patience-testing but scare-pocked horror odyssey better suited to the long-form narrative afforded by the small screen. In feature film form, It is more bloat than float.Read More
The Unbreakable trilogy that started in 2000 at the peak of M. Night Shyamalan’s powers, then went subterranean during his dark ages (the brutal run of films that spanned Lady in the Water to After Earth), and stealthily re-emerged in the midst of his recent revival of sorts (the one-two punch of The Visit and Split re-ameliorating the Indian director with American audiences) has officially ended. Along with the hopes of a true Shyamalanasance (say that three times fast.) And folks, Glass concludes the promise of a 19-years-in-the-making unprecedented movie triptych in the worst way possibly imaginable.Read More
You wouldn’t be wrong to assume that David Leitch’sAtomic Blonde is something akin to John Wick’s younger, hotter sister. Leitch did, after all, cut his teeth in the film industry coordinating and performing stun twork – as did Chad Stehalski, Leitch’s co-director on John Wick. The two Hollywood cowboys are equally infatuated with style above all else, though in Atomic Blonde’s instance it feels less superficial, even while embracing maybe the most superficial time in history – the bitchin’ 80’s.
In 2015, M. Night Shyamalan executed the biggest twist of all. Following a slew of critical and commercial disasters, Shyamalan produced…a hit. The Visit, a found footage old people horror-comedy, connected with critics and audiences, turning its paltry 5 million dollar budget to a whopping near-100 million international haul. More importantly, it signaled the return of one of the most unique voices in the genre: the king of the twist. And Split, a thriller about an abductor with a fractured personality, proves that he’s here to stay. Read More
“Everyone knows the third one is always the worst,” a young Jean Grey (Game of Throne’s Sophie Turner) ironically reports, exiting a 1983 screening of Return of the Jedi. She’s right of course: Jedi is the lesser of the original Star Wars trilogy. But to her larger point: the culmination of trilogies often results in some degree of disappointment, sometimes even sullying the good name of that whence came before it. Take Godfather: Part III, The Dark Knight Rises, The Matrix Revolutions, Spiderman 3, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, ALIEN3, Mad Max Beyond the Thunderdome, Terminator: Rise of the Machines and of course, Brett Ratner’s quite bad X-Men: The Last Stand. Jean’s remark, planted as it is in what is the third film of this newfangled X-Men trilogy, is meant to be tongue-in-cheek, perhaps both a potshot at Ratner’s derided 2006 entry to the franchise and a preemptive snarky parlay to the film’s inevitable detractors, because believe me when I say, X-Men: Apocalypse proves Jean Grey’s point. Read More
There was never any hope that Victor Frankenstein, the latest in a string of hastily-produced re-imaginings of royalty free properties, would garner much critical acclaim, which meant that in order for it to have any real box office potency, it would need to play a very specific game of kowtowing to fans of this somewhat still existent genre. Look no further than the (relative) success of the Resident Evil movies to get an idea of what that should look like: buttloads of glossy, second-rate CGI, neck-break action that doesn’t usually feel the need to stop to think, limitless kills with limited blood. It’s no so much a formula for success so much as it is a formula for not failing miserably. Read More
X-Men: Days of Future Past is not only one of the most anticipated superhero movies in the foreseeable future, it’s also an experiment in what’s to come for world building cinematic universes. Marvel had hopes that The Avengers would soar financially but even they failed to see just how successful their franchise would become. After essentially using their standalone films to promote an eventual team-up movie, interest in seeing separate films eventually come together is a market essentially untapped. Since the one-piece-at-a-time tactic has not been the explicit approach for Days of Future Past, director Bryan Singer and Fox Studios are living in a bit of a Petri dish for all to see if their approach to building a cinematic universe on the fly is a box-office success or a flop. If this first trailer, and the internet’s stunned reaction, is any indication, I’d say we’re looking at a winner.
Although this first look is notably light on action set pieces, it properly outlines the very basics of the plot – a time traveling Wolverine must warn 1970s versions of Magneto and Professor X of a coming disaster involving mutant slaying robots. But instead of selling us on the spectacle, it mostly functioning on an emotional, nostalgic level. Stirring our nerdy desire to see the characters from the past six X-Men films share the screen, Days of Future Past looks to fulfill that promise of culmination, or, at the very least, suggest that we have lift off.
One narrative issue that the trailer suggests is that characters of the future and the past may not share many physical scenes. At least, that appears to be the case for the time being. If that approach is doubled in the film, with each set of characters condoned off into their own “present,” thusly not interacting together as a whole X-Men collective, then the promise of team-ups could come off as deceptive and insincere.
The more likely scenario is that Fox and its constituents are not going to blow that revelatory reunion moment on this first run of a trailer. If anything, it’s a trial run to gauge reaction to the concept. But if the film does end up jumping between narratives of past and present, us audience members might not be getting quite what we want. While keeping the stories largely separate could just work, it does set up a potentially disjointed narrative while also squandering the excitement of having all these actors share the same screen. If Wolverine proves to be the only connective tissue between the two subsets of X-folk, the whole trend towards character acceleration – the propulsion towards more, more, more – may prove to be too little, too late.
X-Men: Days of Future Past is directed by Bryan Singer and stars Patrick Stewart, James McAvoy, Ian McKellen, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Halle Berry, Nicholas Hoult, Peter Dinklage, Ellen Page, Anna Paquin, Shaun Ashmore, Omar Sy and Evan Peters. It hits theaters on May 23, 2014.
