Knock at the Cabin: Don't open this door

Knock at the Cabin (2023) • View trailer

One star (out of five). Rated R, for violence, dramatic intensity and profanity

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang

Would somebody please burn this man’s Directors Guild card?

 

M. Night Shyamalan continues to demonstrate an impressive ability to stretch a 30-minute premise to the point that it screams for mercy.

 

While young Wen (Kristen Cui) cowers behind Andrew (Ben Aldridge), and a similarly
trussed-up Eric (Jonathan Groff) looks on dazedly, Leonard (Dave Bautista) once
again explains — hoping to get a different answer — what is required of the three of them.

The result — here, as in so many of his films — is ponderous, overwrought, absurdly melodramatic and insufferably boring.

I initially held out a bit of hope, because unlike most of Shyamalan’s original scripts, this one is based on an existing book: Paul Tremblay’s Bram Stoker Award-winning horror novel, The Cabin at the End of the World.

 

But no. Although Shyamalan — and co-scripters Steve Desmond and Michael Sherman — have altered key details to make these events somewhat more palatable, their film remains ridiculous. (And, based of what has been changed, I’ve no desire to read Tremblay’s book any time soon.)

 

Eric (Jonathan Groff), Andrew (Ben Aldridge) and their adorable 8-year-old adopted daughter Wen (Kristen Cui) are a loving, mutually devoted family unit. They’ve begun a vacation at Ye Old Isolated Cabin In The Woods (a horror flick cliché long overdue for retirement) and, thus far, life has been nothing but laughter and joy.

 

Then, while Wen is collecting grasshoppers one morning, she’s approached by the imposing Leonard (Dave Bautista), who — despite the wave of menace that seems to shimmer from his skin — attempts to befriend her.

 

Right away, we’re dealing with a modern little girl who should be well schooled about how to react when confronted with stranger danger. And while immediately running into the cabin wouldn’t change the trajectory of what follows, her failure to do so is an early indication of the daft psychology that permeates this entire film.

 

Moments later, Leonard is joined by three others: Sabrina (Nikki Amuka-Bird), Adriane (Abby Quinn) and Redmond (Rupert Grint). At that point, Wen does run to her parents. They barricade the doors and windows; Leonard knocks on the front door and asks that they be let inside … otherwise, they’ll simply break in.

 

(Then why ask permission? It’s not like they’ve vampires, who must be invited across the threshold.)

 

This imposing quartet soon gets inside, each of them now carrying a large, nasty and impressively lethal weapon. (Leonard prefers the term “tools.”) Eric and Andrew resist to the best of their ability, and wind up tied to chairs.

The Outfit: Well tailored

The Outfit (2022) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated R, for violence and frequent profanity

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang

The show must go on, as the venerable saying goes, and two years’ worth of Covid restrictions and limitations forced filmmakers to think way outside the box.

 

Sometimes — as in this case — with remarkably clever results.

 

Leonard (Mark Rylance) and his assistant, Mable (Zoey Deutch), are about to endure
an unusual — and increasingly dangerous — night.

Graham Moore makes a stylish feature directorial debut with The Outfit, a cheeky period crime thriller laden with Hitchcockian touches. Moore and co-scripter Johnathan McClain have concocted a claustrophobic, tension-laden scenario that would succeed equally well as a stage play, but doesn’t feel the slightest bit constrained as a cinematic experience.

(Moore shared an Academy Award for co-scripting 2014’s equally engaging The Imitation Game. He definitely has a way with plot and well-sculpted characters.)

 

The setting is early 1950s Chicago. Leonard Burling (Mark Rylance), a soft-spoken ex-pat Brit, has established a successful corner-shop career as a talented maker of fine suits. (“I’m a cutter,” he patiently insists, more than once, “not a tailor.”) 

 

Moore opens the film with a lengthy sequence as Leonard explains his craft — in voiceover — while we watch how a suit emerges from paper patterns and four different kinds of fabric. Because of the quietly reverential quality of Rylance’s narration, and the fascinating process itself — so esoteric, and highlighted by an old-world attention to precision — this prologue is totally captivating.

 

(If you assume this introduction is insignificant, think again; Leonard’s calmly measured recitation has an ingenious third-act payoff.)

 

Leonard’s customers are greeted by Mable (Zoey Deutch), his receptionist/assistant. Their relationship is friendly and cordial; the affection and mutual respect are obvious … although Leonard, wholly at peace with his place in the world, is amused by Mable’s restlessness.

 

But not everybody coming through the front door is a customer. Numerous daily visitors bypass Mable — she never looks up — and head straight to Leonard’s rear cutting room, where they place sealed packets into a lockbox. The shop is a drop-off point for protection money payments, and the neighborhood is under the thumb of organized crime.

 

As it happens, Leonard’s best customer, Roy Boyle (Simon Russell Beale), is the local boss.

Old: Only partly satisfying

Old (2021) • View trailer

Three stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, for dramatic intensity, sexual candor, nudity and fleeting profanity

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang

Calling this the best film M. Night Shyamalan has made in well over a decade is damning with very faint praise; this is, after all, the man who unleashed stinkers such as After Earth, The Visit, The Happening and The Last Airbender (the latter one of the worst big-budget fantasies ever made).

 

A creepy discovery — from a clever point of view — is made by, from left, Chrystal
(Abbey Lee), Patricia (Nikki Amuka-Bird), Jarin (Ken Leung), Maddox (Thomasin
McKenzie), Charles (Rufus Sewell), Sedan (Aaron Pierre) and Prisca (Vicky Krieps).

But credit where due: Old is by turns intriguing, mysterious and disturbing. It also holds together, as a story, better than the above-mentioned turkeys: a welcome surprise that can be attributed to the fact that this is not a Shyamalan original script. He has adapted the 2010 graphic novel Sandcastle, by Pierre-Oscar Lévy and Frederick Peeters.

Here’s a bigger revelation: Shyamalan’s altered conclusion — one of his signature twists — is more satisfying than the original’s ruminative metaphor.

 

Mind you, we’re talking a degree of success. There’s still much to complain about here.

 

We meet Guy (Gael García Bernal), wife Prisca (Vicky Krieps) and their children — Maddox (Alexa Swinton) and Trent (Nolan River) — en route to a family holiday in a trendy seaside resort. The atmosphere is a bit tense, the dynamic between Guy and Prisca clearly fragile. Troubled.

 

They attempt to mute such feelings, to spare the kids: not difficult, in such a pampered environment, where attentive staff cater to their every whim. This cheerful prologue is quite pleasant; it allows Guy, Prisca, Maddox, Trent and a few of the other resort guests to define themselves.

 

Guy’s family is encouraged to spend the next day at a gorgeous, secluded cove: “Only for our special guests,” promises the resort manager (Gustaf Hammarsten, oozing false sincerity). This invitation clearly troubles young Idlib (Kailen Jude), the manager’s nephew, who has just befriended Trent.

 

The family accepts; they’re joined by Charles (Rufus Sewell), his Barbie-doll trophy wife Chrystal (Abbey Lee), their 6-year-old daughter Kara (Kyle Bailey), and his mother Agnes (Kathleen Chalfant). The shuttle driver (Shyamalan, in his usual cameo role) deftly evades their questions.

 

The promised cove is peacefully picturesque; the little group is augmented by late-comers Jarin (Ken Leung) and his wife Patricia (Nikki Amuka-Bird).

 

They’re all surprised to find somebody else on site: Sedan (Aaron Pierre), brooding and isolated in a distant corner, against the sheer rocky walls that enclose the cove. His presence irritates Charles, who seems to have a hair-trigger temper. Actually, the three family groups seem oddly uneasy around each other.

 

(And for no reason, at this early stage; it’s just Shyamalan, clumsily — and needlessly — heightening the disconcerting atmosphere.)

 

Jupiter Ascending: Overcooked sci-fi slop

Jupiter Ascending (2015) • View trailer 
Two stars. Rated PG-13, for violence, dramatic intensity and brief chaste nudity
By Derrick Bang

Back in the day — way back in the day — sci-fi pulp magazine covers were known for their wonderfully lurid images of scantily clad maidens being menaced by all manner of strange creatures, usually of a reptilian or insectoid nature.

With several nasty spaceships chasing them through the urban canyons of downtown
Chicago, Jupiter (Mila Kunis) and Caine (Channing Tatum) just barely manage to dodge
the laser blasts, thanks to his anti-gravity footwear, which allows him to "skate" on air.

Such covers generally accompanied thoroughly ludicrous space operas that were light on credible characterization or plausible plotting, and heavy on high-tech hardware and weaponry.

This laughably ridiculous flick belongs squarely in that sort of company.

In fairness, Jupiter Ascending isn’t as inane as the Wachowski siblings’ nadir, a spot forever and always to be occupied by 2008’s ill-advised big-screen adaptation of Speed Racer. (At least, one hopes they never plumb lower depths.)

At times, though, it seems a pretty close call. Despite some genuinely thoughtful “big ideas” that percolate throughout this clumsy original script, Jupiter Ascending will be remembered — if it’s remembered at all — for its howlingly dreadful dialogue and relentless, protracted, video game-style action scenes.

Rarely has an ordinary, flesh-and-blood human being endured such punishment, violated so many natural laws of physics, and emerged with nary a scratch. Heck, our heroine’s hair never even gets mussed. We can but roll our eyes, as she survives megascale carnage that should have pulped her fragile body many times over. Scores of times over. Hundreds of times over.

Dumb, dumb, dumb.

Outer space fantasies can be a tough genre to mine successfully; it’s difficult to qualify what separates an engaging, rip-roaring homage — such as the original Star Wars trilogy — from the sort of overcooked mess being served here. I guess the distinction becomes obvious only when filmmakers egregiously succumb to the dark side of the Force, as Andy and Lana Wachowski have done so ostentatiously.

And the silly names don’t help much.