January 29 – February 4
Cinema movies: 2
Home movies: 2
[su_note note_color=”#ffff66″ radius=”8″]If you like this article, you’re gonna love these:
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My wife brought up a good point about Downsizing – it’s a creative piece of plotting. Having watched The Shape of Water the night before, which was, in comparison a more “conventional” movie in the sense that it follows a familiar structure amid a recognisable genre brand, Downsizing is a different beast.
It raises the point of novelty vs. skill.
Where The Shape of Water succeeds by maintaining a known premise and furnishing it with unlikely aspects (the romance being between a woman and a merman instead of a typical heteronormative relationship), Downsizing’s novelty is its strongest asset.
The story follows Matt Damon’s everyman in a near-future where being “made small” is an available technology. Developed by scientists as a way to reduce our impact on the planet, getting “downsized” grows in popularity as it’s a way for people to live beyond their means. The concept is brilliant; ripe for all kinds of exploration, and to be honest, we were both surprised by where it went. While not 100% successful in its execution – it’s a little uneven – you have to admire its ambition. I’d advise not watching the trailer for it. We caught it after seeing the movie and it spoils all of the major plot points.
Seeing the trailers for Darkest Hour and hearing solid critical feedback, it played out exactly as I expected. That’s by no means a bad thing: this is, simply put, pure, unadulterated Oscar-bait. It features a strong central turn from Gary Oldman as Churchill, punctuated by several stand-out scenes showcasing the former Prime Minister’s oratory panache.
Going into Geostorm I had my hopes pinned on it existing in the same modern disaster film arena as 2012 and The Day After Tomorrow. The world’s gone to hell and it’s gonna take the expertise of an unsuspecting, rugged, outsider hero to get the globe back on track!
Well, it achieves the latter part, with Gerard Butler on fine form as a weather tech expert who’s the only person equipped with the knowledge to rectify a colossal cock-up that has plunged the planet into peril. This is not a high-brow outing, certainly, but by the modes of the genre, it’s not exempt from being an absolute blast.
This is a movie about the globalisation of the weather through an intricate net wrapped around the Earth at a great height. It gets hacked and insanity is wreaked on the planet. But… that doesn’t ever really let rip. The geostorm of the title doesn’t materialise. Alas, where you’d expect rollickin’ crazyballs action sequences, we are instead given a string of dialogue-heavy scenes about how bad the weather is. We don’t see nearly enough of the chaos.
The Cloverfield Paradox. What is there left to say?
The second film purchased by JJ Abrams’ Bad Robot production company, retrofitted with additional scenes and shoehorned into the Cloverfield franchise. If that sounds like a mighty impersonal way to make a movie… it is! The first sequel, 10 Cloverfield Lane, made its way to us via the same methods, however, and it worked. A time-bomb thriller, most of which plays out in a bunker, it features John Goodman on top form as a paranoid doomsday prepper keeping two people captive. Like Paradox, it was originally filmed as a completely independent project, purchased by Bad Robot, additional scenes were shot and the whole thing repackaged as a Cloverfield movie.
Loosely-related sci-fi films tied together under the Cloverfield banner is a great idea. There’s less pressure to have explicit plot connections, but more of a thematic similarity. I dig it. But the key to making this style of movie universe work? The films have to be good.
Paramount opted to sell The Cloverfield Paradox – originally titled God Particle – to Netflix, bypassing the chance for a theatrical release. That in itself is a big manoeuvre; but what’s even more intriguing is how the film was marketed. The first teaser arrived during the Super Bowl which also let audiences know, hey, the whole movie will land on Netflix after the game. That type of wham-bam marketing is unprecedented.
But what’s the point of any of that if the subsequent movie isn’t very good?
It’s not difficult to see why Paramount sold it to Netflix. It’s packed with exposition-heavy dialogue, stilted characterisations, nonsensical logic and a complete disregard for the audience. Noticing all the nods to loads of space-set sci-fi classics (Alien, Event Horizon, Moon, Alien Resurrection) is the most fun you’ll have watching this misguided dud.
Until next week.