‘Mute’ Review

The production history of Mute, a new sci-fi thriller now debuting on Netflix, dates almost as far back as director Duncan Jones’ film career does. Mentioned around the time of his outstanding first feature Moon, Jones would instead deliver the terrific Source Code as a follow-up, and then spend years working on the Warcraft movie. Though there were some flashes of visual invention, Warcraft was ultimately left looking like a big-budget misstep on Jones’s CV upon its summer 2016 release, but events seemed to be headed in a positive direction when he quickly bounced back into finally getting Mute made the following year. Now, after a minor blip that saw it bypass theatres, we can all see if this is a pleasing return to form (and the world of Moon) for Duncan Jones? Alas no, it most definitely is not.

‘Black Panther’ Review

17 movies in to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and I find myself in a position when I’ll still happily go and see every one of their movies opening weekend, but at the same time I struggle to get especially excited about them at all. They’re like the cinematic equivalent of eating a snickers bar or something. It was delicious the first time you tried one as a kid, and now you’ll enjoy one, but you’ll know exactly what it will be, and will likely have forgotten about it a few months later. Let’s be honest here, these movies are all really quite similar, and now what I’m mainly asking for when I see a new one is ‘what will this one do differently?’ It that respect, Black Panther, Marvel’s 18^th and latest, has a good deal going for it.

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen the character onscreen of course, with T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman) making a notable appearance in 2016’s Civil War, however while that film went in assuming all viewers had a strong grasp of who and where everyone in the MCU was at that point, Black Panther more or less stands alone, with little connecting it to the series’ other films. The death of T’Challa’s father, King T’Chanka is shown again to remind anyone who didn’t catch/forgot about Civil War, and Martin Freeman’s CIA agent, and Andy Serkis’s villainous arms dealer Ulysses Klaue (who briefly showed up in a shoehorned cameo in Avengers: Age of Ultron) play significant parts, but prior knowledge of either is totally unnecessary. All in all it’s a smart move, having another Avenger randomly show up can be fun if handled well (Thor: Ragnarok) but can also just come across as gratuitous (Ant-Man). Plus it helps in making what’s admittedly a landmark movie for Black cinema more immediately accessible to audiences who might not have been interested in the MCU’s entire output thus far.

This approach does also put Black Panther in a bit of an odd place, it presents itself more-or-less as an origin story for T’Challa taking up the mantel of the Black Panther, and yet we’ve already seen him in action as that. Was he already acting as such before becoming King? If that’s made clear in the film I must have missed it, but it’s not of great importance.

Anyhow, to my original point, what really helps to give Black Panther its own identity is its primary setting – the fictional African country of Wakanda, the history of which is introduced in a spectacular animated opening montage. It’s a technologically advanced nation, thanks to the presence of a substance called vibranium (a word which gets said a few too many times), but has remained isolated from the rest of the world by posing as a poor, farming country to keep its resources and people safe from potential colonisers. The visual realisation of Wakanda is really impressive, from the tribal costuming to the technology, which often appears based on powder-like formations. Similarly, it manages to not have the place look entirely CGI created (some aerial footage was actually filmed in African locations), with the Wakandan cityscapes complementing the African backdrops. All in all it adds up to a futuristic vision that’s unlike anything really seen in a blockbuster movie before.

Our first big sequence in Wakanda occurs during T’Challa’s ritualistic coronation ceremony, where he must face off a challenger (Winston Duke) in a surprisingly violent combat sequence, which again seems to emphasise that this is a far cry from your typical superhero origin story. One minor gripe I have to point out though, is it’s not entirely clear just exactly what the powers of the Black Panther are (they are administered and removed via ingestion of a herb). Are they just generic strength/speed etc, and how much is the suit? Again it’s not overly important but Civil War failed to communicate this as well.

Director Ryan Coogler was one of Marvel’s more interesting hires when announced, going from eye-catching indie drama Fruitvale Station to outstanding Rocky sequel Creed, to this in just a few short years. The earlier parts of the film (particularly a cold-open set in his native Oakland) suggest that he hasn’t has his voice diluted by the Marvel machine too much, but in a later central sequence he reveals a surprisingly different influence – James Bond. The film’s McGuffin is a stolen Wakandan artefact that Klaue intends to sell in Busan, South Korea. This leads to a scene of T’Challa and his accomplices infiltrating the sale which takes place in a large, underground casino, the setting of which, along with the subsequent fight scene and car chase has an obvious Bond inspiration. Coogler utilises an ambitious false single take for the impressive multi-storey fight scene which he just about pulls off, but the car chase, despite clearly being shot on location, is hampered by an over-reliance on clunky CGI.

The other blatant Bond-esque sequence occurs back in Wakanda where T’Challa’s younger sister Shuri (Letitia Wright) runs a tech lab developing various applications for vibranium, including the Black Panther suit itself. She is basically playing Q to his Bond. The dynamic between the two siblings is comes across as quite genuine and Wright delives a delightfully enthusiastic performance injecting some much-needed lightness into what is otherwise Marvel’s most humourless film.

Despite this, T’Challa himself is not especially portrayed as a Bond-type character. Boseman’s stoic performance reflects his character’s primary concerns in the first half over how best to rule Wakanda for the benefit of his people, and on top of this, in his most Bond-like sequences he always has two trusted female accomplices, Okoye (Danai Gurira) and Nakia (Lupita Nyong’o). Both are fantastic in their roles and portrayed as more than capable of holding their own, indeed Nyong’o is introduced recuing a group of girls from being trafficked (that could be its own movie right there). They’re both pleasingly given significant amounts of screen time too, keeping everything going when T’Challa disappears from the film for a large section in its latter half (a potential misstep that thankfully isn’t). They do both have half-baked romantic interests (Okoye with T’Challa’s best friend, and Nakia being his Ex) but it’s not much of an issue.

As good as these multiple kickass female heroes are however, none of them are the film’s standout character, and other huge difference from the standard Marvel template. That would be Coogler’s regular collaborator Michael B. Jordan as the film’s primary antagonist. Loki aside, rubbish and forgettable villains have long been a problem for the MCU. They’ve made some mild improvements but here they might have reached Batman level – having a villain more interesting than your hero. Though he’s introduced in a rather heavy-handed manner, Jordan soon reveals far more intriguing depths to his character’s background and motivations that really make both you, and the surrounding characters contemplate whether he might actually be right. It’s difficult to discuss exactly without going into spoilers – and there are already many thinkpieces out there that explore him better than I could, but I will say that he’s not trying to just take over the world or anything. Jordan really cements his status as one of our most promising young actors here as well (not to mention getting some redemption after the disastrous Fant4stic), he’s so good that he’s not especially compromised even when he’s referred by the unfortunate moniker ‘Killmonger’. His ideas are also of vital importance to T’Challa’s overall arc too, which has much greater weight than simply defeating the bad guy.

Unfortunately though, all this intrigue ultimately leads to a sadly underwhelming third act for the movie. We’re given an unremarkable big outdoor battle sequence that appears to take place mainly due to studio demands. It’s the result of a decision on the part of T’Challa’s former friend W’Kabi (Get Out’s Daniel Kaluuya), which doesn’t seem to make a great deal of sense in the moment, and left me feeling like there might have been a deleted scene that expanded on this. It goes further downhill for the big final battle, which is in principle something we’ve seen in multiple Marvel origin movies before, and in practice a lifeless CGI slugfest with never feels like there are actual characters or tangible objects involved. Considering the energy Coogler bought to Creed’s fight scenes it’s doubly disappointing how little he achieves here, in some ways this is the polar opposite of what he did in Creed. You can’t help thinking that maybe this would be better if it weren’t required to have action scenes and it could be changed up for a more dialogue based exchange.

Overall though, Black Panther is a film mostly worthy of it’s landmark status (and sure to be gigantic box office success). It boasts a US-set wraparound structure that ends it on a satisfactory note after the lesser third act, even if one if the post-credits scenes is fairly vital to the main storyline rather than being a teaser. I’m kind of tired of always ending up thinking about how this would place in a Marvel movie ranking but inevitably find myself doing so, so probably the mid-lower half of the top ten after one viewing. It does though, bode somewhat well for the future of the MCU – diversity, exploring different locations, more mainly standalone stories, better supporting characters and more directorial vision. More like this please, I say knowing Infinity War comes out in 3 months.

3.5/5

‘Justice League’ Review

(Hey so I haven’t written on here in months, I’ll post an explanation a bit later but here’s my first review in some time)

There’s a school of thought that suggests that when reviewing a film, one shouldn’t need to reference anything about the production or background and just analyse what’s there on the screen. I get that, and while I don’t abide by it myself, even if I did there would have to be some exceptions; Warner Bros/DC Comic’s long-awaited Justice league, is such an exception.

‘Alien: Covenant’ Review

As much as I was excited to see this new Alien movie, as I sat in the theatre waiting for the lights to go down, I found myself wondering what exactly I actually wanted from an Alien movie in 2017. Would I prefer it to just be essentially another of the numerous Alien clones that have continued to appear in the decades since its inception, but with a proper Xenomorph? Or do I want someone to try and tell a completely new story in within the Alien universe? While my instinct goes straight for the latter option, the last few times that was attempted the results were, at best, highly divisive.

‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2’ Review

Guardians of the Galaxy was easily the most obscure property that Marvel studios have set their sights on adapting, and the only really surprising announcement since they made since the MCU’s inception. It was a risk that paid off though, with the film being arguably Marvel Studios’ most unique entry, both content and quality-wise. It certainly tends to lie near the top of any fan’s ranking (I’ve got it at 3 myself). With the addition of this sequel though, confidently the strongest ‘part 2’ of any MCU series yet, they might well prove to be the Studios’ biggest stars.

‘The Fate of the Furious’ Review

I’ve begun the last couple of reviews for films in the Fast & Furious series by noting just what an unusual path this franchise has taken to becoming one of the most successful and important film series of modern times. I don’t want to get too repetitive, but let’s just say that my opinion of this series has turned around so much that I’ve gone from thinking they were actively bad movies that I wouldn’t consider paying to see, to being hugely excited about seeing the latest instalment on opening night.

‘Ghost in the Shell’ (2017) Review

I’ve made it no secret that I struggle with a lot of anime, even the classic, universally acclaimed titles of the genre. Maybe it’s me, maybe it’s cultural differences, but I often find myself having difficulty understanding films that, on paper at least, sound like I’d really enjoy. Case in point; 1995’s Ghost in the Shell, noted as a key influence on The Matrix no less, when I first watched it, I found it more or less incomprehensible. I saw it again a few years later with similar results, finding the material surprisingly inaccessible for such a landmark, beloved movie. Anyway, I think I’m more of an outlier here, so maybe I shouldn’t be taken too seriously when I say that one of the few positive things about this American, live-action Ghost in the Shell remake is that I didn’t find it especially confusing at all.

‘Kong: Skull Island’ Review

It makes sense that a studio would want to attempt a giant monsters cross-over again in the current trend for desiring shared universes, and considering that the Japanese production King Kong vs Godzilla (1962) is one of the earlier examples of such a movie. So in case you didn’t know, Kong: Skull Island takes place in the same universe as 2014’s Godzilla, but at a completely different time point so they are generally more unrelated, save for mentions of the mysterious Monarch organisation, and while the two most iconic movie monsters of all time are clearly being positioned for a future confrontation, Skull Island is its own story and not all a big set-up.

‘Split’ and its Unprecedented Ending

I saw M. Night Shyamalan’s new film Split last week, and considering that it took a few weeks to be released where I am, and the amount of time I spend reading movie coverage online, I’m honestly quite surprised that I managed to get to the film unspoiled. But Split is a film that I just can’t discuss without spoilers because of everything I want to say, so if you’ve also managed to avoid spoilers for the film, I’d advise seeing it without knowing anything more, and please consider this a FULL SPOILER WARNING for this post.

‘Silence’ (2016) Review

The notion of ‘faith-based cinema’ nowadays generally refers to low-budget garbage like the output of PureFlix Studios (Do You Believe? God’s Not Dead) that do not seek to do anything more than shamelessly, and often insultingly pander to evangelical Christian audiences. Then, whenever a director gets a rare chance to actually try something riskier, it usually ends up proving controversial among religious audiences, such as Darren Aronofsky’s recent Noah. No stranger to controversy himself, Martin Scorsese last took on the weighty subject in 1988’s The Last Temptation of Christ, a film that caused sufficient outrage to be banned in multiple countries and a terrorist attack at a Paris cinema occurred at a showing. Scorsese isn’t seeking to offend at all though, and at the heart of his latest film Silence, a project he’s wanted to tackle for over two decades, is a sincere exploration of faith and its consequences.