KIMI: They're listening to us!

KIMI (2022) • View trailer

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

Available via: HBO Max

By Derrick Bang

This seems to be the month for unusual takes on Alfred Hitchcock classics.

 

I Want You Back is a rom-com riff on Strangers on a Train, while director Steven Soderbergh’s new little thriller is Rear Window by way of the “Internet of Everything,” along with a soupçon of 2002’s Panic Room.

 

Angela (Zoë Kravitz) has just heard something disturbing, while searching user logs for
virtual assistant comprehension parameters that need fine-tuning. But as an
agoraphobe unable to leave the safety of her apartment, what can she do about it?

No surprise about the latter, since this film’s scripter — David Koepp — also wrote that Jody Foster nail-biter. And, as was the case with Panic Room, Koepp’s carefully calculated script for KIMI doesn’t waste a single detail. I admire writers who follow the “Chekhov’s gun” principle: Any seemingly innocuous detail introduced in the first act, needs to be employed by the third act.

I also admire directors who know when to get off the stage. Given the number of overly long, needlessly bloated films that we’ve endured recently, it’s refreshing to watch a tight, taut thriller that clocks in at a just-right 89 minutes.

 

This also may be the first mainstream film that acknowledges Covid as a major part of its narrative.

 

The setting is Seattle, the time now. Angela (Zoë Kravitz) is an agoraphobe also saddled with a healthy dose of OCD; the pandemic has further amplified the fear of leaving her comfortably appointed loft apartment. She paces nervously during bouts of anxiety, hands twitching at her sides: not randomly, but always in specific patterns.

 

She has managed a flirty, window-to-window relationship with Terry (Byron Bowers), who lives in the apartment across the street. Alas, her best-intentioned efforts to meet him at a food truck, on the sidewalk below her place, always go awry when she’s unable to make it through her own front door.

 

All this aside, Angela is a talented tech worker with The Amygdala Corp, tasked with fine-tuning the comprehension parameters of its just-released, “life-changing” Siri/Alexa-esque gizmo, dubbed KIMI. She analyzes other users’ communication data, helping the KIMIs better understand colloquial phrases and alternate definitions: teaching it, for example, that one user’s request to order “kitchen paper” means “paper towels.”

 

Which obviously means that everybody with a KIMI is being monitored, at all times, by a device that’s recording every word and action. And all of that data is subject to additional review by employees such as Angela … and God knows who else, further up the corporate ladder. Or for what purpose.

 

During a brief prologue, we’ve learned that Amygdala’s CEO, Bradley Hasling (Derek DelGaudio), is about to take his company public; thanks to the explosive interest in KIMIs, he expects a hefty payday. But all isn’t quite copacetic, given his troubled reaction to a certain phone call.

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald: Feloniously underwhelming

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald (2018) • View trailer 
2.5 stars. Rated PG-13, for dramatic intensity and fantasy violence
By Derrick Bang

J.K. Rowling should have quit while she was ahead.

This newest glimpse into the Potterverse will be virtually impenetrable to first-time visitors, and even avid fans may have trouble keeping up. The information and character dumps are overwhelming, with Rowling — as scripter — apparently assuming that viewers will recall every little detail not only from this series’ first entry (2016’s Fantastic Beasts), but also bits and bobs from earlier Harry Potter adventures.

Having successfully infiltrated the French Ministry of Magic, in search of crucial information,
Newt (Eddie Redmayne) and Tina (Katherine Waterston) are about to be attacked by
guardian Matagots.

Which would be fine, if Rowling presented at least some pertinent detail and back-story along the way, but no; this is instant full immersion, and the tough luck for those unable to keep up.

But that isn’t the only problem. Director David Yates and editor Mark Day assemble this film quite sloppily, with multiple storylines hopping and skipping back and forth, in a manner as aggressively chaotic as the massive Chinese Zouwu that our hero Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) meets along the way. 

Some encounters flat don’t make sense. Even at 134 minutes, it feels like we’re seeing a Reader’s Digest condensed version of a much longer production, and that too much important stuff was left on the cutting-room floor.

There’s also a strong sense of déjà vu, with Rowling “borrowing” from her own work. This is most obvious when Newt and his “Auror” (magical law enforcement) companion, Tina Goldstein (Katherine Waterston), invade the French Ministry of Magic, with the help of some shape-changing polyjuice potion. One can’t help feeling the echo of Harry, Hermione and Ron similarly sneaking into the British Ministry of Magic, back in the day.

It’s too much been there, done that. And way too much talking and angst. Long-suffering unrequited love. A soul-tortured quest for personal identity. Elliptical, deliberately vague conversations where characters refuse to be candid with each other. Dangling clues that don’t amount to much, when answers are revealed.

Frankly, this film is a dull, boring slog. It’s not fun.

Nor is Johnny Depp’s Grindelwald anywhere near a match for Harry Potter’s Lord Voldemort. The latter was — remains — a scary force of true malevolence, and was played as such in those movies.

Depp’s Grindelwald, in great contrast, seems more constipated than sinister; his “dire” pronouncements are intoned with a slow, emotionless flatness that feels more like sleepwalking. Were it not for his weird eyes and spiky hairstyle, he wouldn’t even look fearsome. One cannot imagine him rallying hundreds of “pure-born” wizards to his world-conquering cause, as occurs during this film’s climax.

Which, be warned, is little more than a blatant set-up for the next movie.

Rough Night: A misbegotten mess

Rough Night (2017) • View trailer 
One star. Rated R, for raunch, profanity, crude sexual content, drug use and violence
By Derrick Bang

Well, this one lived down to lowest expectations.

And then some.

The calm before the storm: Jess (Scarlet Johansson, center) bubbles during a cheerful
call from her fiancé, while her friends — from left, Blair (Zoë Kravitz), Alice (Jillian Bell),
Pippa (Kate McKinnon) and Frankie (Ilana Glazer) — try to hasten the chat, so they
can continue their debauched evening.

Director/co-scripter Lucia Aniello’s unholy mash-up of Bridesmaids and Weekend at Bernie’s is a ghastly failure on all levels; it’s a forced and thoroughly tasteless comedy, which repeatedly attempts to mangle humor from material that never could have seemed funny on the printed page, let alone on the big screen.

This is a desperation flick ... as in, every cast member looks desperate at all times, no doubt seeking the nearest exit.

“Dying is easy,” Peter O’Toole’s Alan Swann insists, in 1982’s My Favorite Year, as he quotes an apocryphal Hollywood chestnut. “Comedy is hard.”

The actual attribution remains in question, but the sentiment is truer now than ever, because far too many of today’s so-called comedy writers take the lazy way out. As with horror films that splatter gore on the screen in an effort to conceal their inability to induce actual terror, Aniello and co-scripter Paul W. Downs clearly believe that relentless dollops of vulgar, randomly inserted remarks about bodily functions, along with repeated glimpses of penis-shaped sex toys, represent the height of humor.

Not. Even. Close.

When an actress of Scarlett Johnasson’s skill can’t make headway with the steady barrage of clumsy one-liners that pass for dialog in this film, All Concerned should have recognized the failings of the source material.

A brief college-days flashback illuminates the sisterhood bond between Jess (Johansson), Alice (Jillian Bell), Blair (Zoë Kravitz) and Frankie (Ilana Glazer). A decade later, life and careers have frayed this connection. Blair has become an immaculately dressed, high-profile businesswoman; Frankie is a hyper-politicized, save-the-whales activist; Alice is — by her own definition — a much-loved schoolteacher.

The image-conscious Jess, running for Congress, is losing ground to an opponent who gains favorable media bumps for tweeting dick pics (a scenario which, sadly, isn’t far removed from reality). Jess is engaged to marry nice-guy Peter (also Downs), which gives micro-managing Alice the perfect excuse for the “ultimate” bachelorette party, in flesh- and sin-laden Miami.

Divergent: Allegiant — Sci-fi twaddle

Divergent: Allegiant (2016) • View trailer 
Two stars. Rated PG-13, for violence, dramatic intensity and shadowed nudity
By Derrick Bang

With apologies for the unavoidable pun — given that Miles Teller is one of this film’s stars — you could get whiplash trying to keep up with the shifting character loyalties here.

This person is a good guy. Oh, dear; he’s really a bad guy. No, he’s only pretending to be a bad guy; he’s actually a good guy. Damn; he really is a bad guy.

Having escaped from what has become a mess back in Chicago, our heroes — from left,
Christina (Zoë Kravitz), Tris (Shailene Woodley), Four (Theo James), Caleb (Ansel Elgort),
Tori (Maggie Q) and Peter (Miles Teller) — confront the massive wall that separates their
city from the outer wasteland known as the Fringe.

That person is dedicated to the cause of peace and freedom. Hmmm, she seems to have hidden megalomaniacal tendencies. Uh, hang on; is that a glimmer of conscience? No, false alarm; she’s genuinely deranged. But ... then ... how can she lead a kumbaya hug in the final scene?

Our heroine is smart, brave and resourceful. Actually, she’s rather naïve and foolish. Well, hey, cut her some slack; she really is a dedicated and stalwart heroine. No, she’s genuinely stupid and unbelievably gullible, and doesn’t deserve to be leading her companions into constant peril, let alone suckering us viewers into tolerating yet another two hours of nonsense driven almost entirely by her personality flaws.

If all this sounds strained, random and utterly bewildering ... there’s a reason for that.

Like at least one other current big-screen franchise derived from young adult fantasy lit — and, God knows, we’ve been drowning in them lately — the Divergent series feels like everything is made up from one moment to the next. We can’t really blame novelist Veronica Roth, on whose books these films are based; as the film series has progressed, the scripts have, ah, diverged significantly from their respective sources.

Mostly, though, it remains a case of diminishing returns. Whether we’re discussing the Twilight series, or Divergent, or (definitely the worst) Maze Runner, or even The Hunger Games, each new film in its respective franchise has been notably weaker. In part, it’s because the various scripters and directors have deviated too much, abandoning elements that made these young heroines and heroes interesting in the first place, in favor of mindless running, fighting, jumping, fighting, arguing and more fighting.

But the bigger problem does lie with the original book authors, who failed to construct these alternate realms with adequate creativity, plot logic and continuity. Time and again, I’m reminded how vastly superior J.K. Rowling is, not only as a writer and world-builder, but as a novelist capable of fabricating fully dimensioned characters not only with her core protagonists, but with supporting players and casual bystanders.

From books one through seven — and films one through eight — Harry Potter’s adventures flow smoothly and logically, with impressive continuity elements that signify very, very careful planning. People don’t think or act stupidly in Rowling’s fantastical realm.

I sure wish the same could be said here.

Insurgent: Incomprehensible

Insurgent (2015) • View trailer 
2.5 stars. Rated PG-13, for intense action and violence, mild sensuality and fleeting profanity
By Derrick Bang

They’re all blending together.

Dystopian, post-apocalyptic societies cobbled together after some undefined catastrophe, and ruled by corrupt aristocratic elites; resourceful teenage rebels, blessed with special talents, determined to destroy the system, and forced to undergo cruel, violent and flat-out weird mental and/or physical trials; lots of running, jumping, shooting, and killing; the frequently shed tears.

Having been captured by Candor supervisor Jack Kang (Daniel Dae Kim, left), Tris
(Shailene Woodley) and Four (Theo James, center) propose a "trial by truth" to verify that
they're not civilization-destroying traitors, as has been claimed by the (genuinely) evil
Erudite leader.

I no longer know whether I’m watching the next installment of The Hunger Games, the Divergent series, or The Maze Runner.

And, frankly, I’m losing interest. Been there, endured that.

Sadly, the just-released Insurgent bears the brunt of my apathy, thanks primarily to the clumsy, tin-eared script credited to Brian Duffield, Akiva Goldsman and Mark Bomback. They’re a poor substitute for Evan Daugherty and Vanessa Taylor, who did a far superior adaptation of last year’s Divergent, the first film in Veronica Roth’s trilogy.

This new film resembles Roth’s second novel in little more than name; great, gaping chunks of exposition and numerous supporting characters have been lost or ignored, and significant plot points have been changed beyond recognition. Not that the narrative has much of a plot to begin with; this film is little more than running and fighting, whether in environments real or imagined.

Indeed, the latter crop up so frequently that it becomes difficult to distinguish whether Tris (Shailene Woodley) is in genuine danger, or being victimized by one of the evil “SIM” (simulation) environments, or whether we’re once again being suckered by another of her own nightmares.

The latter are particularly irritating cheats, and director Robert Schwentke opens with just such a sucker play: a rather blatant indication of the highly disappointing film to follow.

All of which is a shame, because Woodley gave us a particularly plucky, intelligent and engaging Tris in the first film: a heroine worthy of our respect and admiration, as she rallied when confronted by the truth of the world in which she lived. She’s much less admirable in this second outing, reduced to an insecure, reckless and weepy shadow of her former self.

I understand that this is driven, to a great degree, by the subtext in Roth’s second novel: Tris has become plagued by self-doubt, worried that she’s a “curse” to anybody foolish enough to befriend or love her. The crux of her evolution, in this saga’s second chapter, is the necessity of overcoming such anxiety: rejecting this doom-laden view of herself.

Unfortunately, Schwentke overplays the “despair” card; Woodley’s Tris cries too often, and our impatience soon overwhelms all else ... much the way we groaned over how Jennifer Lawrence’s Katniss became so uncharacteristically impotent, in The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1. That just felt contrived and wrong, and the same is true here.

Divergent: Solid sci-fi teen melodrama

Divergent (2014) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rating: PG-13, for action, violence, dramatic intensity and mild sensuality
By Derrick Bang

Veronica Roth’s fans should be pleased.

Scripters Evan Daugherty and Vanessa Taylor have done an impressive job, condensing the author’s debut novel for its big-screen adaptation; it’s not easy fitting 487 pages into a 139-minute film. Director Neil Burger (The Illusionist) also deserves credit for guiding a solid cast through a deft blend of character angst and action set-pieces.

As a night of capture-the-flag war games commences, Tris (Shailene Woodley) climbs
an abandoned Ferris wheel in order to secure a superior vantage point, while Four
(Theo James) trails behind. Tris has a lot to prove, having disobeyed orders to join
this late-evening exercise.

Divergent is a polished, well-executed sci-fi melodrama that should have no trouble tapping into the fan base that has devoured the adventures of Harry Potter, Bella Swan and Katniss Everdeen.

Indeed, I deem this first cinematic installment of Roth’s trilogy noticeably superior to the first big-screen chapters of the Twilight and Hunger Games series; Daugherty and Taylor are far better at establishing back-story, and laying the groundwork for the gradually building suspense. By the same token, Roth’s cynical, cautionary take on human nature seems more probable than the gladiatorial nonsense at the heart of Hunger Games, which I’ve always found a rather unlikely pill to swallow.

But the dissolution of a so-called utopian society, due to the greed of one faction? Goodness, we know that to be psychologically sound, and it’s even happening today, in this country; we need look no further than the unchecked avarice of our current one percent.

Casting also plays a significant role, of course, and Divergent also satisfies in that respect. The core young actors are well suited to their respective roles, with star-on-the-rise Shailene Woodley admirably anchoring the narrative.

The story is set in an unspecified future, following some sort of war or cataclysm that has rendered much of the United States uninhabitable (so we’re told). What’s left of the city of Chicago has been re-built into a working civilization that is divided into five factions: Abnegation, for kind, selfless souls who place society above their own interests; Amity, for the peaceful farmers who work the land; Candor, occupied by those who value honesty above all else; Dauntless, the warrior caste that maintains peace and defends the city’s perimeter; and Erudite, for the intelligent researchers who develop and maintain all technological advances.

Upon reaching their 16th birthday, all children take an unusual “aptitude” test, to determine which faction best suits them. Those results aside, they’re allowed to select any faction during the subsequent “Choosing Day.” While most children adhere to the faction of their birth, Choosing Day always delivers a few surprises.

And, once having made this decision, it’s irrevocable. Even if young adults decide that they’re unsuited to their enclave of choice, they cannot change; at best, they can become “factionless” (i.e. homeless street-dwellers).

If this sounds a bit like Harry Potter’s sorting hat and Hogwarts’ four houses ... well, yes, that’s obvious. But Roth’s take on this process is far more intriguing from a psychological standpoint, since it revolves around the struggle between aptitude and free will.