After ten years, eighteen movies, and dozens upon dozens of hours, heroes, and villains, “Avengers: Infinity War” is the culmination of Marvel Studios’ cinematic promise to entertain. With so much crammed into an enormous package, it’s a feat that the film even holds up against the weight of the expectations it’s been building up to for so long.
Is there anything on Earth as pure as a dog’s love? It’s obvious how much Wes Anderson adores our canine companions in his animated love-letter to man’s best friend, “Isle of Dogs,” a film that’s as grungy and loveable as the fur on a mangy mutt’s back. In a nightmare future, Japan has exiled its entire dog population to Trash Island after an outbreak of dog flu virus.
2013’s “Pacific Rim” gave me exactly what I was promised: giant robots beating the living pulp out of giant monsters. The film was nothing more than a big, really fun time, but it handled itself well, and its success can be largely attributed to Guillermo del Toro’s excellent direction. Five years later “Pacific Rim: Uprising,” is pretty good — it’s just missing that special del Toro touch that made its predecessor great.
Video game movies have gotten a bad rap ever since “Super Mario Bros.” From their middling to terrible quality, they’ve hardly improved in recent years. Even with the A-list talents of actors, such as Michael Fassbender, Mark Wahlberg and Angelina Jolie, the video game genre can’t seem to do any good. Somehow, Hollywood seems bent on producing them after over 20 years of continual failure — and 2018’s first offering for the genre continues this trend with “Tomb Raider,” a dumpster fire of a movie without the redeeming residual warmth one could provide.
In 2045, the world’s most valuable economic resource is the OASIS, a massive virtual reality universe where people can escape the overpopulated, polluted slum the world has become. Upon the death of its creator, James Halliday (Mark Rylance), the full ownership of the OASIS is up for grabs for whoever can complete Halliday’s last will and testament: a challenge to collect three keys hidden across the virtual world.
Much like the current socio-political climate of Mexico, “Gringo” is enormously messy. The “dark comedy” film directed by Nash Edgerton and starring the — wasted — talents of David Oyelowo, Sharlto Copley, Amanda Seyfried and Charlize Theron never follows through on its promises of humor or drama and is instead an utter chore to sit through. The premise is simple. After he learns he’s being stabbed in the back by his best friend and boss, Richard (Joel Edgerton), Harold Soyinka (Oyelowo) fakes his own kidnapping following a shady exchange with a Mexican pharmaceutical company. When Richard calls in his brother, an ex-special-ops soldier (Copley), to help rescue Harold, shenanigans ensue.
Unlike what seems to be the majority, I was not at all impressed by director Alex Garland’s previous film, “Ex Machina.” It’s a trite, boring piece regurgitating the dangers of AI — and the humans that make it, ooh — for the umpteenth time. I just didn’t get it I suppose. Regardless, I went in giving “Annihilation” and Garland another fair chance. Natalie Portman leads as Lena — a cellular biologist who, after the mysterious reemergence and near-death of her missing husband Kane (Oscar Isaac), joins an investigative team to explore a spreading alien anomaly dubbed “the Shimmer” in hopes of curing him.
There’s an unsettling air of control hovering over Cory Finley’s directorial debut, “Thoroughbreds.” Lily’s (Anya Taylor-Joy) strict stepfather, Mark (Paul Sparks), lurks in the background of their enormous, empty mansion almost omnisciently. Her mentally unstable friend, Amanda (Olivia Cooke), effortlessly feigns emotion and can cry on command. Even the claustrophobic locations and camerawork are overbearingly oppressive. The film becomes a wonderfully tense ride of unpredictability when this control is lost as Lily and Amanda incapably hatch a plan to kill Mark.
“Red Sparrow” had me totally breathless in its opening scenes. The seamless interflow between a prima ballerina’s beautifully tragic final performance and the thrilling intrigue of a CIA spy exchange had me going well into the first chunk of the film as the situations diffused into what would become the central plot. Unfortunately this initial momentum progressively fizzles out throughout the film’s girthy 120-minute runtime. Sabotaged and permanently crippled by her fellow ballerinas, Dominika Egorova (Jennifer Lawrence) is coerced by her uncle, a high-ranking member of Russian intelligence, to serve as bait for a politician. Following problematic outcomes, Dominika is sent to a secret Russian facility training spies — known as “sparrows” — for the state.
2017 had plenty of ups accompanying its many downs. Marked mostly by a lacking summer blockbuster season, there were a few surprise hits that kicked off early in the year, along with some later prestige films reliably packing in its conclusion. Perhaps most notable of 2017 was the diminishing returns yielded from franchise film tickets at the box office, indicating at least a moderate degree of audience fatigue toward sequels. In preparation for the Oscars, here are some of my top picks for 2017 in film.
Solutions by The State News
