Thief. Everything Michael Mann is here already, the precision, the feeling of control, the exactness of intent, and James Caan is a solid lead. Professionalism is no bar to amateur interference, and his skilled burglar becomes embroiled with the mafia and crooked cops. You have some great proficiency porn in the crimes, and some surgical slow motion when the shooting occurs. The supporting cast is good, especially James Belushi, and Robert Prosky as a horrible mob boss, and mostly enhanced by being about 70-80% Italian-American (so about as Italian as Turkish delight). Tuesday Weld doesn’t get that much of a role as Caan’s love interest, but at least her lines are just as good as anyone’s, the film was written by Mann and has his usual essential, emphatic dialogue.
Power of the Dog. I don’t get it, lads. It’s very well made technically, the acting is good, but there’s nothing in the plot that has drawn my attention. I’ve seen people talk about the plot intricacy and the ending, and I don’t think there is any intricacy? I understand the ending just fine, I just don’t think it’s much of a twist, more of a mild surprise. Plemons’ character in particular is irritating, being entirely placid and unable to stand up for, or to, anything or anyone. Benadryl Cumsatchel gets the best role and does a lot of acting. Dunst’s sozzled hopelessness is so immediate I felt nothing but disappointment. Smit-McPhee’s careful, studied lack of reaction is nice, but it’s the only tool in his box.
Jurassic Park 3. Still coasting on the first film’s reputation, but nowhere near the lows of the following films, they managed to lure Dern back for three whole scenes, and Sam Neill gets to carry the rest, a particularly thankless task here alongside William H. Macy, Tea Leoni as the obligatory bit of crumpet, and Alessandro Nivola. The film does the ‘children in danger’ bit that has been a mainstay of the series since the first film, which only irritates me, seeing as some of the best parts of the whole series have been people being deservedly eaten by dinosaurs. While the creature effects are still good, the discrepancy between sets and locations in a Jurassic Park film, have never been more obvious to me, though the cast seem to have been knocked around and drenched with gusto regardless.
Hardcore. George C. Scott goes looking for his missing daughter who has disappeared into the porn industry of the big city. What really struck me about this one is how people are still telling this story decades later, with the likes of 8mm having a lot of the same beats. He’s a man completely out of his element, if not quite out of his depth, and he doesn’t hold back on showing the stress that comes with such a quest. The resolution is too neat, but refuses the shallow, easy answer. Bonus points for him leathering someone unconscious using a lamp, and being so angry he orders Peter Boyle’s private detective to fuck off out of his own place.
Spider-Man: No Way Home. It’s no Into the Spiderverse, but it’s good. I especially appreciate J. K. Persimmons turning J. Jonah Jameson into the MCU’s Alex Jones. Every character has an extra dimension to them, so even actors in otherwise-boring roles have something to do, there’s more integration with the MCU, plenty of humour, and while I don’t think much of Watts’ direction, it’s adequate. Doesn’t have the verve of Into the Spiderverse, and some of the visual design is poorly thought out, but an entertaining film.
Solis. Decent. Blatantly made on a low budget with little in the way of resources, it uses CGI to good effect for small background details, though it’s notably less effective for bigger shots. One man’s painful journey in an escape pod into more trouble, with a cast of one and some voices. Could have been much worse.
The Batman. Not bad by any means. Gotham is the most rotting it has ever been, a dilapidated Gothic rainy ruin that seems to be some sort of 70s New York City hellscape (except in panoramic shots where it looks a lot less shitty, which is annoying), and it’s an atmospheric setting for the majority of the film. Both the setting and events are really derivative of Seven, which is unfortunate, but the film does have some horror elements, in a few scenes, that are more original and should have been used more often. There really is space for an almost slasher-film approach, where Batman stalks criminals through dark environments and lets fear do half his job for him, but it’s not much in evidence here, sadly. It’s quite a dark film, almost entirely set at night, and there is some glorious use of lighting, and some not so great stuff too. Pattinson is fine as Batman, but strangely not very good at Bruce Wayne; in some scenes he looks like a younger, thinner Javier Bardem, sulking his way through. Zoe Kravitz as an elfin Catwoman was good, Paul Dano was excellent in his few scenes, and I wish Andy Serkis would fuck off. Jeffrey Wright as Gordon was a little light of a role next to Batman, with nowhere near as much to contribute. John Turturro as an almost archaic mafia don was a nice surprise. Colin Farrell is almost unrecognisable. At nearly three hours long, it’s a bit stretched, and I don’t think the main plot is very good at all (there’s some real problems with the incongruity between the supposed difficulty of the conundrums presented and the ‘intelligence’ of the protagonists), but there’s also a lot of good stuff here; the tense relationship between Batman and the police, the workmanlike and functional brutality of the fights, the way we see Batman from the perspective of the criminals, and the overall slightly different tone of the film, shifting away from the pitiless vigilantism of previous incarnations.
