The Gorge: Not quite deep enough

The Gorge (2025) • View trailer

3.25 stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, for intense action and violence, brief profanity and dramatic impact

Available via: Apple TV+

By Derrick Bang

TheWrap cheekily dubs this “The romantic sniper monster movie you’ve been waiting for,” and that’s a fair description.

 

When Levi (Miles Teller) and Drasa (Anya Taylor-Joy) finally figure out a way to meet in
person, the flickering sparks of mutual attraction become incandescent.

I’ll go a step further: For the first hour or so, while director Scott Derrickson and scripter Zach Dean keep their cards concealed, this is a highly intriguing thriller fueled by two compelling characters, played superbly by Anya Taylor Joy and Miles Teller. This movie would be a silly little trifle without them.

Unfortunately, it’s eventually necessary to Provide Answers, and this film’s second half — although a rip-snortin’ roller coaster of pell-mell action — loses its smarts. The Reason For All This leaves far too many questions, hanging chads and plot holes large enough to fill the gorge in question.

 

Many films of this nature conclude with viewers sputtering “But, but, but...!” and wondering what logically would happen next, but this one’s in a league all its own.

 

Events begin as professional assassin Drasa (Joy) — a Lithuanian frequently employed by the Kremlin for covert ops — successfully completes an assignment with a long-range sniper rifle. She carefully retrieves the single spent cartridge shell and — during a subsequent meeting with her father, Erikas (William Houston) — hands it to him by way of purging her “sorrow.” He places it into a pouch laden with scores (hundreds?) of such shells.

 

But she’s shattered to learn that he’s dying of cancer. Unwilling to succumb slowly and painfully, he announces that he’ll end his life early the following year, on Valentine’s Day. Her chagrin is complex: Aside from not wanting to lose him, how will she then exorcise her sorrows?

 

Joy and Houston play this scene masterfully. She has long been adept at finely nuanced expressions and body language, since bursting onto the scene in the 2020 miniseries, The Queen’s Gambit. A wealth of emotions come into play here, particularly during the silences between sparse dialogue.

 

Elsewhere, in the States, former U.S. Marine scout/sniper Levi Kane (Teller) has lost his psychological edge; he suffers from nightmares about previous assignments. He’s nonetheless recruited by Bartholomew (Sigourney Weaver), a high-level spook of some sort, for a highly unusual, year-long assignment.

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga — An awesome, explosive sci-fi epic

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated R, for relentless strong violence, gore and grisly images

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang

Seventy-nine years young, director George Miller has lost none of his creative energy or filmmaking chops.

 

Piloting the weapons-laden War Rig — and accompanied by scores of kamikaze
"War Boys," who'll cheerfully die while taking out enemies — Praetorian Jack
(Tom Burke, left) and Furiosa (Anya Taylor-Joy) believe they're ready for anything.
Boy, are they in for a surprise...

Actually, he’s getting better, which is saying a great deal.

Furiosa, the fifth installment in his increasingly complex Mad Max saga — chronologically, the fourth — is a wildly imaginative, audaciously breathless, pedal-to-the-metal thrill ride. This film never lets up, from its first moment to the last, and its 148-minute length doesn’t feel excessive. Indeed, I was disappointed when the final fade to black led to the end credits.

 

That said, Miller’s grimly amoral, post-apocalyptic nightmare of a violence-ridden future isn’t for the faint of heart; this is savage stuff.

 

Those willing to embrace Miller’s vision will be stunned by the spectacle, the awesome production design (Colin Gibson), the mind-blowing stunt work and energetically choreographed action sequences (Guy Norris), the crackerjack editing (Eliot Knapman and Margaret Sixel), the wildly bizarre and often repugnant costume design (three-time Oscar winner Jenny Beavan, one of them for 2016’s Mad Max: Fury Road), the similarly weird and wacky makeup design Lesley Vanderwalt), and the unbelievable energetic cinematography (Simon Duggan).

 

All of which is assembled, with unerring precision, by the equally gifted Miller.

 

Honestly, adjectives fail me.

 

For those not versed in the Mad Max saga — after all, the first three films were four decades and change ago — an off-camera narrator explains, during a brief prologue, that a global catastrophe left much of Earth uninhabitable. Most of Australia, setting for this narrative, is a radioactive wasteland.

 

(One must take this information with a possible grain of salt; later events suggest that this is an unreliable narrator.)

 

The subsequent storyline is divided into five chapters, each running roughly half an hour, each given ominously ironic titles. The first opens as adolescent Furiosa (Alyla Browne) and Valkyrie (Dylan Adonis) pick fruit in the Eden-like “Green Place of Many Mothers.” Furiosa spots four raiders; aware of the importance of keeping this realm a secret from any outsiders, she tries to sabotage their motorbikes.

Amsterdam: A great place to visit

Amsterdam (2022) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated R, for violence and bloody images

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 10.7.22

“Some of what follows actually happened,” the initial title card promises.

 

And how.

 

Our heroes — from left, Burt (Christian Bale), Valerie (Margot Robbie) and Harold
(John David Woodman) — finally realize that Henry (Michael Shannon, far right) and
Paul (Mike Myers) haven't been entirely candid with them.

Writer/director David O. Russell’s audacious new film is a cheeky banquet of historical fact and fiction, served up as a comedic thriller about loyalty, love and the dogged determination to do the right thing, even in the face of overwhelming odds.

The impressive ensemble cast is highlighted by fascinating performances from leads Christian Bale (once again, almost unrecognizable), Margot Robbie and John David Washington.

 

Russell’s story hits the ground running and never lets up, its twisty plot unfolding against a slightly stylized tone that begins as mild burlesque, but soon turns increasingly, believably sinister.

 

And — let it be stated — there’s no question Russell also intends this as a strong cautionary parallel to our current times. 

 

As philosopher George Santayana famously observed, Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it.

 

The setting is 1933 in uptown New York, where WWI comrades Dr. Burt Berendsen (Bale) and attorney Harold Woodman (Washington) have become “fixers of last resort” for those down on their luck or low on money, and particularly for the many physically and emotionally shattered veterans who’ve been ignored by the U.S. government.

 

(Although granted so-called “bonus certificates” with a face value equal to each soldier’s promised payment with compounded interest, these scripts could not be redeemed until 1945 … which hardly helped unemployed individuals during the height of the U.S. Depression. In July 1932, President Hoover ordered the U.S. Army to clear the campsites of 43,000 desperate demonstrators who had gathered in Washington, D.C. The soldiers, along with their wives and children, were driven out, after which their shelters and belongings were burned.

 

(Sound familiar?)

 

Burt is quite the flamboyant kook, forever “inventing” restorative and pain-relieving medicines that won’t be available for decades — if ever — and cheerfully testing them on himself. His dilapidated office is filled with suffering veterans hoping to feel better — and in some severe cases look better — while Burt does everything to help cheer them up.

 

Bale’s performance is sublime, starting with the unreliable — and persuasively realistic — glass eye that constantly pops out of its socket: the result of a war injury. Burt is unkempt, unshaven, seemingly flustered and reckless … and yet possessed of acute intelligence and sharp perception.

 

Bale appears to be channeling Peter Falk’s Detective Columbo, with a superficially harmless and disarming manner that conceals razor-sharp awareness.

Emma: Love's labours crossed

Emma (2020) • View trailer

Four stars. Rated PG, for brief partial nudity

By Derrick Bang 

Jane Austen, like Dickens and Shakespeare, never gets old.

 

Director Autumn de Wilde’s lavish adaptation of Emma was one of the early COVID casualties, initially scheduled for theatrical release in late February. The loss of that traditional debut is unfortunate, since the sumptuous efforts of cinematographer Christopher Blauvelt, production designer Kave Quinn and costume designer Alexandra Byrne screamed for a big-screen showcase.

 

The unworldly Harriet (Mia Goth, left) hangs — like a worshipful puppy — on every
morsel of guidance supplied by Emma (Anya Taylor-Joy). Alas, as we're destined to
learn, Emma isn't worthy of such trust.

The film’s arrival on HBO is nonetheless welcome, and Eleanor Catton’s faithfully droll screenplay works just as well on a home screen. But there’s no question the lavish estate settings would have been even more stunning in a darkened movie theater.

 

We’ve not had a straight American adaptation since the 1996 version with Gwyneth Paltrow in the lead role — and a nod to 1995’s Clueless, as a loose modern translation — so it’s definitely well past time to spend a few hours with Emma Woodhouse and her various friends, family and suitors.

 

Be advised: You may want to take notes, as quite a lot of characters are involved in this light-hearted period dramedy.

 

Anya Taylor-Joy is perfectly cast as the aristocratic Emma, not quite 21 years old, whose self-assurance is matched only by her determination to gift everybody with the benefit of her wisdom. Although culturally polished and well-intentioned, her inherent kindness often is overshadowed by a relentless tendency to meddle.

 

Indeed, her older sister’s brother-in-law, Mr. Knightley (Johnny Flynn, technically too young for the role), likely would call Emma insufferably arrogant … but he’s too polite and refined to do so. Instead, they bicker and banter in a manner that allows maximum exposure to Austen’s piquant and slightly snarky dialogue. (She was so far ahead of her time.)

 

As the story begins, Emma’s longtime friend and former governess, Miss Taylor (Gemma Whelan), has just “married well,” and become wife to the aristocratic Mr. Weston (Rupert Graves). Having initially introduced them to each other, Emma takes credit for this successful union, and — after returning home, to the family estate at Hartfield — decides that she’s a born matchmaker.

 

Her next “project”: new friend Harriet Smith (Mia Goth), a 17-year-old pupil at a nearby girl’s boarding school. (When she and her fellow students parade about in their scarlet coats — which occurs numerous times, as this film proceeds — one can’t help thinking of Ludwig Bemelmans’ Madeline, with its “…twelve little girls in two straight lines.”)

Glass: Should be shattered

Glass (2019) • View trailer 
Turkey (zero stars). Rated PG-13, and much too generously, for gore, violence, dramatic intensity and profanity
By Derrick Bang

This may not be M. Night Shyamalan’s worst film — The Last Airbender will hold that trophy, forever and always — but damn, it runs a close second.

Restrained and shackled for a group interview, our three misfits — from left, Elijah Price
(Samuel L. Jackson), Kevin Wendell Crumb (James McAvoy) and Davis Dunn
(Bruce Willis) — await their next encounter with specialist shrink Dr. Ellie Staple.

Mind you, this is amid considerable competition; Shyamalan also is responsible for bottom-of-the-barrel dreck such as The Visit, Lady in the Water and After Earth.

Nor do these statements tell the entire story. Airbender isn’t merely a Shyamalan stinker; it was by far the worst big-budget studio film of 2010. And even though we’re only halfway through January, I feel quite confident in dismissing Glass as the worst studio film of this year.

Shyamalan has become an insufferably arrogant and self-indulgent filmmaker: one who feels that his cinematic contributions are akin to Moses delivering unto us the 10 Commandments. The signs are obvious: the measured, portentous line readings, with individual words separated by pauses so pregnant they could deliver; the needlessly weird camera angles, which serve no purpose save to call attention to themselves; the protracted, silent close-ups on cast members, as if to suggest they’re always Thinking Weighty Thoughts; and a torturously lethargic pace — and deadly dull storyline — that could make watching paint dry the height of entertainment.

I long ago grew suspicious of any film that opens in the office of a psychiatrist or psychologist; with very few exceptions, they’re inevitably bombs. And while it’s true Glass doesn’t do so, we spend an unbearable amount of time listening to shrink Ellie Staple (Sarah Paulson) prattle away, often with cinematographer Mike Gioulakis’ camera just this side of being jammed up her nostrils.

On top of which, poor Paulson spends most of the film buried beneath enough make-up to satisfy every member of the Radio City Rockettes. Honestly, she looks like an embalmed corpse, newly risen from the grave.

Is all this pancake, rouge and eye shadow somehow intended to be Significant? Who knows? Who cares?

Shyamalan would have us believe that Glass is the final installment in his so-called “Eastrail 177 Trilogy,” supposedly gestating ever since 2000’s Unbreakable. To borrow the phrase that has become the rallying cry of Florida’s Parkland teen activists, I call bullshit. Shyamalan’s merely re-writing history to grant his newest film even more cachet, when it deserves none at all.

Thoroughbreds: Bad breeding

Thoroughbreds (2017) • View trailer 
Two stars. Rated R, for profanity and disturbing content
By Derrick Bang

Watching two teenage sociopaths chat their way up to a homicide isn’t my notion of a good time.

Writer/director Cory Finley obviously feels otherwise, since that dynamic is the sole raison d’être for Thoroughbreds, a thoroughly dull and unpleasant little study in girls behaving very badly.

Lily (Anya Taylor-Joy, background) feigns innocence, sweetness and light, but — as this
film progresses — we begin to wonder if she's even more twisted than her sorta-kinda
best friend Amanda (Olivia Cooke).

Not that such a topic can’t generate an absorbing or even fascinating storyline. But Finley hasn’t the skill for such an exercise; his film lacks the darkly snarky impudence of Heathers, or the alluringly warped fantasy elements of Heavenly Creatures, or the hypnotic creepiness of Stoker. All three are unsettling — and far more successful — studies of young women dabbling in murder.

Thoroughbreds is Finley’s first effort at writing or directing, and it shows. He stretches a 15-minute premise way beyond endurance — even at an otherwise economical 92 minutes — and his relentless reliance on talking-heads set-ups too frequently makes this feel like a boring stage play. Indeed, it could have been such, except for Finley’s fondness for cinematographer Lyle Vincent’s languorously long and sweeping tracking shots through the hallways and stairwells of the opulent home wherein one of our protagonists resides.

The talking heads in question belong to Amanda (Olivia Cooke) and Lily (Anya Taylor-Joy), two insufferably spoiled white-bread bitches whose parents clearly have more money than God. As introduced, Amanda is “troubled,” while Lily is the “noble spirit doing a good deed” via tutoring lessons. But it’s not that simple, and appearances are deceiving.

Actually, they aren’t. It’s pretty obvious, from the start, that both of these girls are warped Bad News.

Amanda, at least, appears to have an excuse. She’s clinically, emotionally barren: unable to experience joy, sorrow or anything in between. She’s therefore brutally blunt and candid during casual conversation, puncturing and stepping beyond all protective levels of social decorum.

Cooke plays this role persuasively, with an intense, owl-eyed stare and vocal delivery that lacks all inflection. We’d think Amanda compromised by an excessively high drug regimen, except that her perceptive gaze misses nothing, and her seemingly detached observations are uncomfortably frank. But that shtick wears thin, as does her black, dead-eyed stare; Finley overuses both.

Cooke may be remembered for her winning turn in 2015’s under-appreciated Me and Earl and the Dying Girl; she’s also soon to star as Becky Sharp in the Amazon/ITV miniseries adaptation of William Makepeace Thackeray’s Vanity Fair. One hopes she can put this current effort behind her as quickly as possible.

Split: This uneven thriller should do just that

Split (2016) • View trailer 
Two stars. Rated PG-13, and rather generously, for dramatic intensity, violence and gruesome behavior
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 1.20.17

Color me surprised.

Writer/director M. Night Shyamalan’s newest little shocker truly is a cut (or chomp) above his other recent efforts.

While Marcia (Jessica Sula, left) and Claire (Haley Lu Richardson) watch nervously in the
background, Casey (Anya Taylor-Joy) attempts to persuade their captor's (James McAvoy)
youngest personality to help them escape from his other, more vicious selves.

But since we’re talking about the guy responsible for Lady in the Water (unrelentingly silly), After Earth (jaw-droppingly awful), The Visit (utterly repulsive) and The Last Airbender (quite possibly the worst mainstream fantasy ever made) ... that’s damning with very faint praise.

It must be difficult to hit a stadium-clearing home run the first time at bat — as with, say, Orson Welles (Citizen Kane) and John Carpenter (Halloween) — and then spend the rest of a steadily declining career trying to top, or even match, that first triumph. Pursuing that rainbow destroyed Welles, and has turned Carpenter into a pathetic remnant of his former self. (Anybody remember Memoirs of an Invisible Man, Prince of Darkness or Ghosts of Mars?)

Thus, pity poor Shyamalan, forever toiling in the shadow of The Sixth Sense.

Since then, he has demonstrated an unerring knack for concocting an intriguing premise, failing to exploit it credibly, and then flushing away any marginal good will during a bonkers-ludicrous third act.

Split follows that pattern; its modestly saving graces are a better-than-usual starting point, and a bravura performance from his leading man. (Or should I say performances?)

Shyamalan wastes no time, opening with a frighteningly credible kidnap scenario that leaves high school teenagers Claire (Haley Lu Richardson), Marcia (Jessica Sula) and Casey (Anya Taylor-Joy) at the mercy of an eerily calm guy (James McAvoy) with a shaved head and military bearing. The girls wake up in a basement cell, albeit one appointed with an unexpectedly clean and polished bathroom.

Claire and Marcia, best buds, are among the most popular girls at school; Casey is the quiet outcast everybody whispers about. Thus, the savage separation of status prevents the trio from bonding into a proper team (a shrewd psychological handicap).

Their captor’s various tics include an obsessive/compulsive fixation on neatness; he’s also a sexual deviant, as evidenced by a brief but distasteful encounter with Marcia (mercifully left off-camera).

The Witch: Barely casts a spell

The Witch (2016) • View trailer 
Two stars. Rated R, for disturbing violent content and graphic nudity
By Derrick Bang

Filmmaker Robert Eggers’ modest little chiller is being hailed as 2016’s first “New Wave horror masterpiece,” akin to last year’s It Follows.

Sadly, that’s high praise this film doesn’t deserve.

As Thomasin (Anya Taylor-Joy) continues to suffer the guilt of having "lost" her baby
brother, Caleb (Harvey Scrimshaw) tries to comfort her. But he does the job badly, in
part because of his own conflicted feelings about his older sister.

It also has been described as the unholy love child of Swedish director Ingmar Bergman and The Blair Witch Project. That’s much closer to the truth, albeit with far more Bergman than Blair. Unlike that 1999 cinematic con job, which was a case of the emperor having no clothes whatsoever, The Witch does deliver a few lurid sequences while building to its nasty finale.

But Eggers is a much better director than writer. He definitely gets full marks for moody atmosphere and unsettling tension, and — assisted by production designer Craig Lathrop — quite cleverly stretches the $1 million budget to deliver impressive period authenticity.

But the plot is clumsy and random, with key details and motivation left undisclosed, and the characters are badly under-written. We’ve no idea why any of this is happening, or what these poor folks have done to deserve it (although there’s a suggestion that female puberty is the catch-all culprit).

More to the point, character behavior is deranged, and therefore impossible to take seriously. Much has been made of Eggers’ meticulous adherence to early 17th century New England dress, mannerisms and particularly speech; that’s well and good, but he rather overplays the religious zealotry, to the point of generating unintended laughter at all the wrong moments.

On top of which, even with the aforementioned third-act climax, Eggers’ pacing is languid to the point of tedium. Something obviously is wrong, when you can’t sustain interest for a brief 90 minutes.

In a word, The Witch is a yawn. Until the final 10 minutes or so.