Happy Death Day 2 You Review

Dunkers I’m used to having my heart broken on Valentines day but by Blumhouse? My favorite live-action studio in the whole, wide world? The studio that brought us the Venom film we all deserved in Upgrade? Who’s business model of making films on tiny million dollar budgets means that a wonderful, amazing break from CGI super-blockbusters is never too far away. Hell, their even allegedly bringing the DARK UNIVERSE back to life with an allegedly low budget, small focus, no stars 18 rated film in the pipeline. Aka EXACTLY WHAT THEY SHOULD HAVE DONE IN THE FIRST PLACE.

But back to today and I find myself being put through Happy Death Day 2U Death Harder which is a sequel to 2017’s Happy Death Day which is basically Groundhog day meeting a slasher film, a pretty solid film which needs about a sequel about as much as well…. Groundhog day.

Because where is there to go with a sequel? Either you retread old ground by either forcing the character to go through another looping day or you switch to another character and have them relive the same day over and over again.

Happily though this film decides to go for option three and completely flips genres on us. So instead of having to sit though a pointless sequel about another killer after our heroine, we get a pointless sequel that presents and then ignores a fascinating idea about how this time loop are destroying the universe and our cast should do something about it by killing themselves forever, instead opting to punt our heroine into a parallel universe where she has to relive the first film whilst debating whether she should return home or stay where fate has dumped her…

Except the killers different and all the people that we came to know over the first film have different relationships and personalities because different universe. Except we aren’t focusing on finding our new killer, we’re instead focusing on…erm….

Actually, what the hell are we focusing on?

I mean there is the thread about Tree (our alleged heroine)trying to get home by utilizing some wibbly, wobbly timey wimey device straight out of a middling episode of Doctor Who but where the first was a very tight, very simple film, this film is baggy and seems very plot light. I confess I did enjoy some some the death scenes but that’s very thin gruel when I can go to any Final Destination or Saw movie or even Death Day 1 and watch people die in interesting ways.

The dialogue isn’t as good, the characters aren’t as interesting, the film (even though it”s a mere 4 minutes longer) doesn’t really seem to have any idea what to do with itself. I get wanting to go back to the well but sometimes you should just leave be.

At the end of the day, Happy Death Day 2: Death Harder  is trying to do something more than simply retreading the first one but when you open with the idea of the universe decaying because of the events of the prior and current film and then do nothing beyond another time loop film without little hints that the universe is decaying and that time is therefore running out to fix this just seems maddening. Imagine the possibilities!

And yes, the thread that Trees body is retaining the damage it’s accumulating thanks to the repeated deaths and therefore she’s getting weaker every loop is continued but wasted. Put her in a wheelchair, a cast, have her wake up missing a leg, a hand, an eye – SOMETHING to show that she’s decaying but, instead it’s just one random trip to the hospital and then off we go. And yes, there is still the mystery of who the killer is (and they do do something slightly interesting with it) but it’s just off to the sideline and is solved pretty much by accident and very little fanfare.

If this was a CW show (which it seems to aspire to want to be,) this would be one of the episodes they throw together when the budgets running low, but this isn’t a TV episode, it’s a feature film made by one of the most innovate studios out there. A sequel with no reason to exist as it has very little to say. It’s not completely hopeless, but it’s the weakest film that I’ve seen Blumhouse put out and i’m not looking forward to the already in production part 3 in the slightest.

My Score- Skip It

Whats going to go wrong with Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets?

So far in this series, I have waited for the films to be released into the cold, hard, unforgiving world for their brief moment in the light before dissecting their still warm corpses to see what lessons we can learn but for this one, I’ve got enough evidence to say that there’s no need to wait.

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets is going to bomb and it is going to bomb bigly. The only question is how much it will bomb by and how many careers will be destroyed by it.

Now, on paper, Valerian seems like a pretty safe bet. Based off of Valérian and Laureline a French science fiction comics series, created by writer Pierre Christin and artist Jean-Claude Mézières. First published in Pilote magazine in 1967, the final installment was published in 2010. So plenty of source material to work from, the fact that the series has been sold all over the world implies that there is some sort of market out there.

Legendary French director Luc Besson has allegedly been given 209 million dollars to play with and had assembled a cast of stars including Cara Delevingne, Dane DeHaan, Ethan Hawke, Rihanna, Clive Owen and John Goodman.

So, a legendary (in France anyway) series of graphic novels comes to Hollywood for its moment on the silver screen. Wheres the issues?

Eveywhere.

Valerian didn’t come to Hollywood to play. It stayed in France. This is France’s highest budget film…. ever. And it’s not close in any way shape or form.  The closest contender is a French movie called Asterix at the Olympic Games, which cost $82 million to make. Now, with the budget for Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets reportedly coming in at a staggering $209 million, that puts it at almost triple the budget of the previous record holder. Now, most Marvel films don’t have budgets of 200 million dollars and they’re as safe as films can get. This is an untried, untested franchise that has very little, if any name recognition outside of its native France.

But, thinks you Luc Besson is directing it! He directed The Fifth Element! That he did, 20 years ago. And it’s been dividing audiences ever since. I feel that I should also point out that nothing he has done in intervening two decades has come anywhere close to the scale of this project. Yes, Besson has done Stopmotion, CGI  and action films but none of them have had budgets anywhere near a hundred million dollars, let alone 209 million! And he’s not consistent in the quality of his films either. For every Lucy he’s made, there’s a Taken 2 or 3. I don’t he’s ever made a flop, but he’s no Spielberg.

But leaving all that aside, you then have the issue that we are currently experiencing something of a glut of blockbusters at the moment. At least Jupiter Ascending (the last time anyone tried to do a new space opera franchise) had the good sense to be released in the wasteland of January, a time when there was very little to compete with because to my mind, even if Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets had no direct competition it would be a tough sell, but the week before Fox is releasing War for the Planet of the Apes and Christopher Nolan’s WWII epic Dunkirk will be competing with it directly. Not to mention that Spider-Man: Homecoming will still be hanging around for its third weekend at the box office. With so many tried and true franchises out there, why would you sped your hard earned money on anything else?

And then we move on to star power.

There isn’t any really.

I’m not saying that Cara Delvigne isn’t a star, but she’s a new one and she has never headlined a major film before. Her role in Suicide Squad was little more than a glorified cameo and as for Dane DeHaan, his highest profile role was as Harry Obsbourne in the Incredible SpiderMan 2. I’ve seen him in a few films and whilst he never disgraces himself, he’s never looked like leading man material to me. Especially when according to Wikipedia his character can be described as “as a typical square-jawed hero figure, who is strong and dependable”

Even looking at two comparable films Enders Game and Jupiter Ascending, you find nothing to cheer about. Enders Game had a budget of 110–115 million but made only
125.5 million,  As of January 2014, Lionsgate was waiting to make a decision on a sequel film, and was also considering a television series. But I wouldn’t hold my breath.

Jupiter Ascending on the other hand had a budget of $176 million and made a mere
184 million with any talk of a sequel being met with hysterical laughter. Hell, even The Wachowskis have claimed that it’s pretty much killed their career as far as high budget blockbusters go.

So there you go, all the reasons why, as far as i’m concerned,  Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets will be one of, if not the biggest bombs of the year.

But what do you think?

 

Beauty and the Beast Review

And so, in the year 2017, in the most expensive musical ever made with a budget of 160 million dollars, starring Emma Watson and… some guy off of Downtown Abbey,  all the debate surrounding the classic tale of a young girl coming to grips with her inner furry via the time honored medium of Stockholm Syndrome has been about the character of LeFou who is the first ever officially gay character in a Disney film.

And I do mean all the debate, In Russia,Duma member Vitaly Milonov (who has previously compared homosexuality to bestiality) agitated the culture minister for banning of the film, but instead it was given a 16+ rating (children under the age of 16 can only be admitted to see it in theaters with accompanying adults). Additionally, a theater in Henagar, Alabama will not screen the film because of the subplot In Malaysia, the Film Censorship Board insisted the “gay moment” scene be cut, prompting an indefinite postponement of its release by Disney, followed by their decision to withdraw it completely if it could not be released uncensored. The studio moved the release date to March 30, to allow more time for Malaysia’s censor board to make a decision on whether or not to release the film without changes and will be released on the said date with a PG-13 rating but with no cuts. In the end, the Malaysian Censorship Board decided not to ban the film.

But what shocked me the most though, was that China who usually have a ‘no gays ever, under any circumstances’  policy on films . And that’s probably because there’s not really anything there. I mean I wasn’t exactly expecting him to stomp around the set waving a rainbow flag and I did find him a bit too Smithers’y for my taste but there was no line or moment that I haven’t seen before in a Disney film. The charterer of Hades from Hercules comes to mind.

But in a way i’m glad for this pointless controversy because what else is there to say? Have you seen the original? Good, stop there and save yourself the hassle because you have seen this film. And the singing is better. And it’s a mere 81 minutes instead of a bloated 129 minutes and the servants actually look kind of cute instead of horrifying nightmare fuel.

I did like that a plot aspect from the Broadway show – that the servants are becoming more mechanical with every petal that falls, the songs that apparently come with it? Not so much. Just because a song works within the limitations of a stage doesn’t mean it’s going to work in a film adaptation!

Beauty and the Beast is the latest in the baffling live-action adaptation faze that Disney seems to be going through. It passed the time well enough but it’s bland, forgettable and in dire need of the editors scissors.

My Score- If Nothing Else 

What Went Wrong With Live By Night?

2016 was not a good year for Ben Affleck.

Not only did he feature in both Batman Vs Superman and Suicide Squad which… i’ll be charitable and say split audiences down the middle whilst neither one made anywhere near the level of money that was expected on them.

And then there’s the ongoing mess of The Batman in which Affleck has not only stepped down as director but there are rumors of script rewrites and even those who are whispering that he may step down as the Dark Knight altogether.

But to my money, the biggest mess for Affleck was Live By Night a passion project that was released in the US on December 13 and over in the UK on the 13th of January.

Up until now, Affleck has been a very solid director.  His directorial debut, Gone Baby Gone (2007) (Budget $19 million Box office $34.6 million, 94% on Rotten Tomatoes) which he also co-wrote, was well received. He then directed, co-wrote, and starred in the crime drama The Town (2010) (Budget $37 million, Box office $154 million 94% on Rotten Tomatoes). For the historically inaccurate political thriller Argo (2012) (Budget $44.5 million, Box office $232.3 million, 96% on Rotten Tomatoes), which he directed and starred in. Affleck won the Golden Globe and BAFTA Award for Best Director, and the Golden Globe, BAFTA, and Academy Award for Best Picture. Becoming the first director to win these awards without a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Director. Also, Alan Arkin’s nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in Argo meant that Affleck’s first three films all secured Academy Award nominations for an actor or actress in a supporting role.

The point i’m trying to make is that when Ben Affleck makes a film, he typically makes money which keeps the executives happy, earns critical praise and awards which keeps the actors happy and praise as a director for himself. And as he’s made films across several genres, all of which have been well received I imagine that it was with little difficulty that he got the green light to adapt Live by Night – a crime novel by Dennis Lehane that was published in 2012. It won even won a 2013 Edgar Award for novel of the year.

And by rights this should have worked. Previously the two had collaborated on Gone Baby Gone which had worked well. And yet… something got lost somehow. I’ve already reviewed this film and found it to be beautiful to look at somehow empty and soulless. A very episodic nature didn’t help either. I figured it would do OK  and I would probably never have to think about it again.

Except then I started to hear some disturbing things about Live by Night. First was the reviews. Rotten Tomatoes gave the  film a mere 35% with other critics noting that   “Live by Night boasts visual style and an impressive cast, but they’re lost in a would-be crime saga that finds producer, director, and star Ben Affleck revisiting familiar themes to diminishing effect.”

There was the lack of praise for how he used his actors with absolutely no awards buzz in any way shape or form. And then came the big issue. Money.

Live by Night had a budget of 65 million and probably the same again for advertising but it took a mere 20.8 million dollars at the box office making it the first (but by no means last) box office bomb of 2017.  But it gets worse.  Live By Night had the biggest third-week drop in cinema screens since records began, according to Box Office Mojo. The film lost over 94% of movie theatres willing to show the film. In its second week of release the movie was showing on 2822 screens, but a week later just 163 were prepared to have the movie.

The loss of 2,659 screens in a single week tops that of previous record-holder, Eddie Murphy’s ‘Meet Dave’ from 2008, the sci-fi ‘comedy’ in which Murphy played a space craft which looks like Eddie Murphy, piloted by 100 tiny humanoid aliens, one of which was played by Eddie Murphy. (Budget $60 million, Box office $50.7 million, 19% on Rotten Tomatoes)

That movie, as well as losing its shirt at the box office, dropped from 3,011 screens in 488, while last year’s ‘Hardcore Henry’, in third place, dropped from 3,015 to 519. (Budget $2–3 million, Box office $14.3 million, 49% on Rotten Tomatoes)

So what happened? According to Scott Mendelson, a Forbes contributor, the problem is that films these days have to compete with several blockbusters that both children and adults want to see, like “Rogue One” and “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.”

“Part of the problem is that so many of the big blockbuster-y movies… are playing to adults as well as kids,” he said. “So the actual adult movies are fighting for a smaller piece of the pie. Since most casual adult moviegoers go to the movies once or twice a month, if that, if they spend that date night checking out ‘Rogue One,’ then the actual adult movies suffer accordingly.”

Mendelson said there is only room for a few big hits each season.

“There is usually one or two adult films that can thrive in a given season, ‘Arrival’ and ‘Hacksaw Ridge’ over the holiday; ‘La La Land’ and ‘Hidden Figures’ over the New Year. But otherwise it’s a tough going for most studio programmers.”

And whilst I agree with most of his points, I don’t feel that the film would have done better if it had been released in say May. The critical response would still have been the same, what little word-of-mouth there was would still have been the same. I doubt that the marketing would have been more effective, in fact it would have been less effective had it been released alter in the year when all of the big budget blockbusters were ruling over cinema.

Every director gets to make one disappointment and I guess that this is Afflecks. It certainly won’t hurt anyone’s career and it’s a good bit of trivia to have in the event of a pub quiz.

But what do you guys think? Did you see Live By Night and what film do you think most deserves to bomb this year?

How Long Should a Film Be?

Audiences will allow a book to be as long as it wishes, the theater to last for roughly 3 hours (with an intermission), a television show to last for roughly an hour but they seem to be a little more flexible with how long they will tolerate a trip to the silver screen.

And the guidance is incredibly vague,  “According to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, American Film Institute, and British Film Institute, a feature film runs for 40 minutes or longer, while the Screen Actors Guild states that it is 80 minutes or longer.”

I have long regarded films lasting between 80-90 minutes with deep suspicion as they have either been perfectly crafted gems or borderline un-watchable messes that have been desperately padded to something near an appropriate length (we’ll see which category the 83 minute Grimsby fits in if I’m ever able to get off my deathbed.)

On the other end of the scale, we have the ‘bladder busters’ which tend to win all the awards, such as Superman V. Batman which will clock in at 2 hours 31 minutes, longer than either Avengers film or even The Godfather Part 2. 

Or, if you’ve got a lot of time on your hands you can catch the 2012 classic Logistics  which ran for 35 days/240 hours. Or, if your pushed for time I strongly recommend the shorter (but still 10 days/240 hours long) Modern Times Forever (Stora Enso Building, Helsinki. 

Myself? I think films should aim for being between 90-120 minutes. Shorter for action film which tend to have a relatively simple plot, longer for more complicated, engrossing films.

What do you think?