The King's Man: A royal good time!

The King's Man (2021) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated R, for strong, bloody violence, profanity and sexual candor

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 12.24.21

Fans of this series are apt to be mighty surprised — happily, one hopes — by this third entry’s unexpected shift in tone and style.

 

En route to Russia in a private train, Orlando (Ralph Fiennes, far left) shares what he
knows about Grigori Rasputin, while, from left, Shola (Djimon Hounsou),
Conrad (Harris Dickinson) and Polly (Gemma Arterton) listen attentively.

Whereas 2014’s Kingsman: The Secret Service and 2017’s Kingsman: Golden Circle are deranged, profane and gleefully over-the-top comic book burlesques, this new entry is only mildly naughty. It’s more accurately a sly bit of alternate history, with director/co-scripter Matthew Vaughn — and co-writer Karl Gajdusek — setting their cheeky Kingsman origin story against the very real horrors of World War I.

The tone is more akin to a Golden Age classic such as 1939’s Gunga Din … albeit with dollops of 21st century hyper-violence.

 

Key events are rigorously accurate: from the triggering assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, which set the Triple Alliance (Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy) against the Triple Entente (France, Russia and Britain); to the ghastly horrors of trench warfare that claimed the lives of an estimated 9 million soldiers.

 

Other films have depicted the latter more authentically — director Sam Mendes’ 1917 immediately comes to mind — but Vaughn, Gajdusek and production designer Darren Gilford convincingly establish a similarly grim tableau. One sequence, achieved with some clever CGI, is particularly effective: a bit of time-lapse legerdemain that reveals the impact of two years’ of war, as a pastoral Western European landscape transforms into a barren wasteland laden with mutilated corpses.

 

But this comes a bit later. The conceit of Vaughn and Gajdusek’s script is that this nation-shattering abattoir was orchestrated clandestinely, behind the scenes, by a nefarious cabal whose many members include Russia’s mad monk, Grigori Rasputin (Rhys Ifans). Their leader, known only as The Shepherd — he remains unseen, as with the early 1960s machinations of James Bond’s Ernst Stavro Blofeld — is motivated by an enraged hatred of England, for its centuries-old repression of Scotland.

 

Meanwhile…

 

Following a brief 1902 prologue set during South Africa’s Boer War, during which we meet Orlando, the Duke of Oxford (Ralph Fiennes), and his young son Conrad (Alexander Shaw), the story flashes forward a dozen years. Fiennes excels at this sort of refined, crisply authoritative figure; Orlando is unapologetically aristocratic but also mindful of his station, and the need to behave honorably for the common good.

 

As a result of events during that prologue, he’s also a devoted pacifist: a philosophy that increasingly puts him at odds with the impetuous Conrad (now played by Harris Dickinson), who — like so many young men of his era — wishes to prove his bravery in “glorious battle.”

Mank: A true dazzler

Mank (2020) • View trailer

Five stars. Rated R, for profanity and sexual candor

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 1.8.21

Director David Fincher’s Mank is a magnificent experience in all manner of ways, starting with Gary Oldman’s mesmerizing portrayal of celebrated journalist, author and screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz.

 

Screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz (Gary Oldman) and actress Marion Davies
(Amanda Seyfried) meet over a shared cigarette; they'll soon bond over their
tempestuous fealty to William Randolph Hearst.

It’s also a bravura, often breathtaking display of cinematic art. Fincher, cinematographer Erik Messerschmidt and editor Kirk Baxter have meticulously replicated the style, atmosphere and very essence of the film — Citizen Kane — whose creation drives this narrative. The sharply sculpted screenplay — by Fincher’s late father, Jack — even mimics the non-linear storytelling style that was so innovative in Orson Welles’ classic.

 

The saga is rigorously period-authentic, and (mostly) historically accurate. Jack Fincher conflates a few key events — and meddles a bit with chronology — to heighten dramatic tension, but his characterization of key players is (often dismayingly) dead-on.

 

Perhaps Jack Fincher’s most audacious stroke is his revival of a controversy that film scholars have deemed long settled: the question of who actually wrote, and/or contributed the most, to the script of Citizen Kane. Fincher pere et fil clearly imply that Mankiewicz deserves the lion’s share of credit, whereas actual evidence weighs far more heavily in Welles’ favor. 

 

Ah, but even here, Fincher’s script is cheekily ambiguous … because their Mankiewicz clearly isn’t the most reliable narrator of — or participant in — his own life.

 

(In the movie world, stubborn skeptics are akin to those who insist that Shakespeare’s plays actually were written by Francis Bacon. For the record, though, Welles and Mankiewicz shared the screenplay Academy Award, the sole victory among Kane’s nine Oscar nominations.)

 

Fincher opens his film in early 1940, as Mankiewicz is deposited at an isolated ranch in Victorville, California, roughly 90 miles from the hedonistic Hollywood environment that exacerbates his worst tendencies. He’s left with secretary Rita Alexander (Lily Collins), longtime friend and writing associate John Houseman (Sam Troughton), and a nurse (Monika Gossmann) to care for a badly broken leg sustained in a recent driving accident.

 

Mankiewicz’s assignment from Welles: to come up with the initial draft of a screenplay depicting the imperious career of a combustible newspaper mogul who — wink, wink, nudge, nudge — isn’t really based on William Randolph Hearst. Except that of course it is.

Godzilla, King of the Monsters: Gawd-awful

Godzilla, King of the Monsters (2019) • View trailer 
One star. Rated PG-13, for relentless monster carnage and fleeting profanity
By Derrick Bang

Sigh.

I’ve seen a lot of stupid over the years, but this one takes every cake in the bakery.

Not yet having realized that she's standing alongside a deranged sociopath, young
Madison (Millie Bobby Brown, right) watches while her mother, Emma (Vera Farmiga),
activates a whatzit in order to unleash a whozit.

Rarely has a big-studio blockbuster been directed this clumsily, written this poorly, and acted this atrociously. Doctoral theses could be written, about everything wrong with this misbegotten mess.

It’s a $200 million embarrassment.

When a film is this bad, every minute wasted with it — and we’re looking at 131 minutes here — is an exercise in put-me-out-of-my-misery tedium. Root canal surgery would be preferable.

This second entry in the modern Godzilla series once again demonstrates the folly of pleasing too many international masters, given that this is a co-production by Warner Bros. and China’s Legendary Entertainment. In theory, that should be a good thing, since it assures international casting; in practice, it has been the death of quality cinema.

Recent exhibits of shame include Skyscraper, Pacific Rim: Uprising, Man of Steel and, yes, the previous Godzilla. Among many others.

Each one is characterized by noisy, cataclysmic, landscape-leveling mayhem that goes on and on and on and on. Along with atrociously dumb dialogue, and performances so wooden they could warp.

And — worse yet in this case, with respect to emotional resonance — people who mostly stand around, slack-jawed, impotently staring at screens, or out windows. It’s difficult, nay impossible, to get involved with characters in a thriller of this sort, unless they’re pro-active and do something to make a difference.

One of this film’s major stars checks out so quickly, we scarcely have time to register the individual’s presence.

Three-quarters of the way into this debacle, somebody finally does something heroic. And then there’s an act of noble self-sacrifice, and for a moment — just a fleeting moment, but still — we actually care. A teeny-weeny bit.

Prior to that…

Ghostbusters: Don't bother to call

Ghostbusters (2016) • View trailer 
2.5 stars. Rated PG-13, for supernatural action and crude humor
By Derrick Bang 

It can be argued, with reasonable justification, that a film shouldn’t be remade unless one intends to deliver a new version that is superior to, or at least as good as, its predecessor.

The franchise busters behind this 21st century Ghostbusters failed in their mission.

With all of New York City under assault by legions of cranky phantasms, the Ghostbusters —
from left, Abby (Melissa McCarthy), Jillian (Kate McKinnon), Erin (Kristen Wiig) and Patty
(Leslie Jones) — suit up and ready their proton packs.

In every way that matters.

In theory, the gender switch is a delightful idea ... but only had it been accompanied by better material. It feels as if helmer Paul Feig and co-writer Katie Dippold believed that we’d be so charmed by the notion of women in those iconic uniforms, that we’d forgive the lackluster directing and clumsy, inadequate script. They didn’t even try.

The primary distinction involves tone. The 1984 original’s far-fetched premise notwithstanding, the guys took their work seriously; Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis and Ernie Hudson gave solemn, even stern, line readings. That contrast — their earnestness, in the face of crazed circumstances — made the film hilarious. The humor was arch, not infantile.

The Aykroyd/Ramis script also was constructed with some care, and with adults in mind. In a film laden with great one-liners, none was funnier than Murray’s response to the possessed Sigourney Weaver, when she tried to seduce him by moaning, “I want you inside me.”

“No,” he replied, after a beat. “It sounds like you’ve got at least two or three people in there already.”

Nothing in this new film comes close to that level of sly humor; Feig’s preferred approach is the lazy, vulgar slapstick we see all too frequently these days. His cast most often behaves like the participants in a Saturday Night Live sketch, delivering isolated bits of (not very funny) business, with no thought to narrative continuity.

The 1984 film catered to all ages. This one’s for snickering, arrested adolescents. Which shouldn’t surprise us, given that Feig is the guy who, with Melissa McCarthy, inflicted us with The Heat and Spy.

And, as is the case with the recently released Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates, too much of the dialogue here feels forced and ad-libbed; that’s particularly true of McCarthy, who frequently flails about as if she has forgotten her lines, and can’t come up with a reasonable substitute. She (and Feig?) apparently believe this to be “characterization.”

It feels like desperation.

Woman in Gold: Engaging art world saga

Woman in Gold (2015) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated PG-13, for dramatic intensity and fleeting profanity
By Derrick Bang

Director Simon Curtis’ absorbing, ripped-from-the-headlines drama could be considered the All the President’s Men of the art world.

During a visit to Austria, Maria Altmann (Helen Mirren) and her young friend and colleague,
Randy Schoenberg (Ryan Reynolds), make a point of visiting Vienna's Belvedere Gallery,
where the painting Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer has been displayed since just after
World War II. The question is whether it deserves to remain there...

Much the way that 1976 classic made journalistic investigation so fascinating, scripter Alexi Kaye Campbell breathes intrigue and tension into what — in the real world — unfolded as an extended, research-heavy, David vs. Goliath courtroom battle. Campbell has the advantage of the considerable tension surrounding the saga’s Holocaust origins; the result, while sometimes sliding into clichéd melodrama, builds to a suspenseful finale.

On one side of the dispute: octogenarian Jewish refugee Maria Altmann (Helen Mirren) and her callow, almost laughably inexperienced attorney, Randy Schoenberg (Ryan Reynolds).

On the other side: the entire country of Austria, personified by condescending museum owners and Ministry of Culture officials.

The situation at issue: actual ownership of five paintings by Austrian master Gustav Klimt, most notably his legendary Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer, a work iconic enough to be recognized even by people who know nothing about art.

As it happens, Adele Bloch-Bauer was Maria Altmann’s aunt ... and therein lies the tale.

Curtis and Campbell divide their narrative between the late 1930s, leading up to and immediately following Hitler’s annexation of Austria; and the late 1990s, beginning with a stack of letters found by Maria, in the twilight of her comfortable years in California, following the death of her beloved sister. The letters’ contents raise intriguing questions, prompting Maria to seek advice from Randy, a budding attorney and the grandson of a family friend.

Randy initially wants nothing to do with what he perceives is a ludicrous, hopeless case; he’s much too busy trying to fit in at the prestigious legal firm where he has just been hired by the authoritative senior partner (Charles Dance, in a brief but suitably intimidating role). But Maria, imperious in her own right, plays the “Jewish heritage” card ... and, before he quite realizes what has happened, Randy is hooked.

An exploratory visit to Austria hardens his interest, after he and Maria are rebuffed by the aforementioned cultural officials. Despite the restitution law passed by Austria’s Green Party in 1998, they discover — with the assistance of Austrian investigative journalist Hubertus Czernin (Daniel Brühl) — that this supposed display of “justice” is little more than a PR ploy, which the country’s nationalists have no intention of applying to any truly revered artworks.

And nothing is more revered than Klimt’s masterpiece, regarded, as Czernin explains, as “Austria’s Mona Lisa.”

The Imitation Game: What price genius?

The Imitation Game (2014) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated PG-13, and rather harshly, for mature content and occasional sexual candor
By Derrick Bang

Mankind has an unfortunate tendency to devour its champions. Always has, likely always will.

We’re also not very tolerant of those who are different, whether in appearance or behavior. During times of crisis, such eccentricities are regarded even more suspiciously.

Despite indifference and outright hostility from some of his Bletchley Park colleagues,
Alan Turing (Benedict Cumberbatch) proceeds doggedly with the creation and
construction of a massive "thinking machine" that he hopes will break the German
"Enigma code" that has frustrated Allied efforts for so long.

Norwegian-born director Morten Tyldum’s handling of The Imitation Game employs shaming and ostracization as dramatic plot points: issues every bit as significant as the WWII-era predicament that brings young mathematician Alan Turing to the unusual code-breaking operation at Buckinghamshire’s Bletchley Park.

As scripted by Graham Moore and depicted by star Benedict Cumberbatch, Turing is a social outcast by virtue of his utter obliviousness to decorum and protocol. He affects a level of bland arrogance that infuriates everybody, yet remains utterly bewildered by how he is perceived by others.

This characterization places Turing squarely “on the spectrum,” to acknowledge the phrase du jour ... and I can’t help feeling that this artistic decision may have been propelled more by our current fascination with such characters — think Hugh Laurie’s Dr. Gregory House, or Cumberbatch’s own modern spin on Sherlock Holmes — than by authenticity.

This film’s opening credits are a bit deceptive, implying that Moore concocted this screenplay on his own. Only when we hit the closing credits can sharp-eyed viewers spot, in tiny print, a reference to Moore’s script being adapted from Andrew Hodges’ 1983 biography, Alan Turing: The Enigma. And while Hodges drew upon ample sources to confirm Turing’s impatience with bureaucracy and the grinding sluggishness of the military chain of command, Moore’s decision to re-cast this as full-blown autism is ... well ... historically suspect.

That said, it allows Cumberbatch to inhabit another of his fascinating, eccentricity-laden characters: a fresh performance that never ceases to be both fascinating and entertaining. Tyldum clearly recognizes this, choosing to open his film with Turing’s initial interview in the office of Bletchley Park Commander Alastair Denniston (Charles Dance). It’s a hilarious, impeccably timed display of rat-a-tat dialogue between an increasingly annoyed Denniston and the calmly indifferent Turing.

Indeed, such unruffled disdain later leads to the film’s funniest line, when one of Turing’s colleagues comments, in the aftermath of a particularly blunt display, “Popular in school, were you?”

Likely not, but that’s hardly the point; Turing’s unlikely presence at Bletchley Park, juxtaposed against the increasingly importance of his work, is what makes this film so engaging.