David R. Walker

Archive for August, 2024

It Ends with Us

Director: Justin Baldoni

Cast: Blake Lively, Justin Baldoni, Jenny Slate, Brandon Sklenar, Kevin McKidd, Amy Morton, Hasan Minhaj

Running Time: 2 hours and 10 minutes

Film Rating: 7.5 out of 10

We thought romance had died a sudden death on the cinema screen recently.

Luckily director Justin Baldoni’s adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s 2016 bestselling novel It Ends With Us has lavishly appeared on the cinema screens.

American actress Blake Lively takes on the role of Lily Bloom, a beautiful young woman who after briefly mourning the death of her father in her home town of Plethora, Maine, moves to Boston, Massachusetts to start a new life and open a florist.

On the rooftop of a swish apartment building in downtown Boston, Lily meets the handsome Ryle Kincaid a neurosurgeon who she initially resists but then he sweeps her off her feet. Lily Bloom superbly portrayed by Blake Lively (The Age of Adaline, The Town, Café Society, Savages), who proves she has the acting skill to navigate a complex role, is still dealing with the trauma of having an abusive father Andrew Bloom, briefly played by Kevin McKidd (Tulip Fever, Made of Honor) while dealing with an overbearing but well intentional mother Jenny Bloom wonderfully played by Chicago PD’s Amy Morton.

It Ends With Us is a beautifully crafted film which deals with subtle psychological abuse suffered by women in relationships with violent overbearing men.

While Lily’s florist thrives, conflict in her life appears when she accidentally sees her teen lover again after many years, a smouldering Atlas Corrigan superbly played by Brandon Sklenar (Midway, Vice) last seen on the small screen in the ravishing series 1923 playing a hunter Spencer Dutton in colonial Africa. It’s clear that the sparks between Atlas and Lily have not died and soon their relationship rekindles.

On every level, It Ends with Us is a beautiful romance with some skilfully interwoven themes about abuse, female empowerment and finding love. Blake Lively is sensational in this film, in every scene she looks like a supermodel. An absolutely beautiful woman to play the central character in a contested love triangle peppered with abuse, admiration and adjustment.

It Ends With Us is primarily aimed at a female audience but it was refreshing to see how full the cinema was to witness a film devoid of violence, special effects, action and gratuitous nudity. Sometimes it’s a romance that will fill the cinema seats and in this case It Ends with Us delivers on every level with some sensational lead actors.

It Ends with Us gets a film rating of 7.5 out of 10 and is highly recommended viewing for those that have read the novel and want to experience a riveting romantic drama on the big screen. See it now!

Deadpool & Wolverine

Director: Shawn Levy

Cast: Ryan Reynolds, Hugh Jackman, Emma Corrin, Matthew Macfadyen, Channing Tatum, Wesley Snipes, Jennifer Garner, Chris Evans, Henry Cavill, Morena Baccarin, Rob Delaney, Aaron Stanford

Running Time: 2 hours and 8 minutes

Film Rating: 7 out of 10

You can picture the writers and studio executives at a pitching session for new film ideas for a North American summer blockbuster. Let’s put Deadpool and Wolverine in a film together. Let’s take a reprobate like Deadpool and a washed up X-man and see if they gel.

In director Shawn Levy’s Deadpool & Wolverine, superstars Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman team up for that bitchy bromance film that gives audiences that warm fuzzy feeling needed in a time of global chaos and strife.

Note the title of this film is not Deadpool vs Wolverine, it is Deadpool & Wolverine. It’s a buddy superhero movie in which the crazy duo enter a different space time paradigm thrusted upon them by the immaculately dressed Mr Paradox brilliantly played with a brittle British hysteria by Golden Globe and Emmy winner (Succession) Matthew Macfadyen, who appears to be the villain. Soon the fast talking and annoying Deadpool and the grumpy hard drinking Wolverine confront the real villain Xavier’s sister Cassandra Nova expertly played with sociopathic coolness by Emmy winner (The Crown) Emma Corrin.

Both Emma Corrin and Matthew Macfadyen balance the crazy antics of Deadpool & Wolverine which at times goes completely off the reservation with foul language and bone cracking brutality, not to mention sexual innuendo and inappropriate comments.

With a host of screenwriters including Ryan Reynolds, the script pokes lots of self-reflexive media fun at the studios including 20^th Century Fox, Fox news and of course the parent company of Marvel, Disney. Deadpool & Wolverine looks like a nightmarish pastiche of all past superhero films which will satisfy the geek squad.

While Deadpool is aspiring to become an Avenger, Wolverine wants to go back and save the rest of the Xmen, the dynamic duo come across a weird group of superheroes stranded in a Mad Max inspired wasteland, a significant nod to Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga.

See cameos by big stars including Wesley Snipes (Blade, New Jack City, One Night Stand) as Blade, Jennifer Garner (Daredevil, Juno) as Elektra and Channing Tatum (The Lost City, Magic Mike) as the card throwing Gambit.

Deadpool & Wolverine contains some very weird and downright silly scenes while constantly pushing the envelope which is a bridge too far for Disney. Maybe this is auto correct for all of Disney’s political correct remakes of the last 5 years.

If you like your action bloody and your superheroes foulmouthed and disgruntled then catch Deadpool & Wolverine in cinemas now. Unfortunately the craziness weighed down any narrative relevance making the plot indistinguishable despite the humorous banter and high production values.

Better than Deadpool 2 but not as good as one expects, yet still entertaining, Deadpool & Wolverine gets a film rating of 7 out of 10. Recommended viewing strictly for fans of Marvel films.

Twisters

Director: Lee Isaac Chung

Cast: Daisy Edgar-Jones, Anthony Ramos, Glen Powell, Brandon Perea, Maura Tierney, Daryl McCormack, David Corenswet, Harry Haddon-Paton, Kiernan Shipka

Running Time: 2 hours and 2 minutes

Film Rating: 7 out of 10

Minari director Lee Isaac Chung takes on a big budget blockbuster with the 2024 remake of the 1996 film Twisters with Helen Hunt and the late Bill Paxton.

The 21^st century version has a host of hot young stars including Daisy Edgar-Jones (Where the Crawdads Sing) as Kate Carter a meteorologist and Oklahoma storm chaser, Glen Powell (Top Gun: Maverick, Hitman) as the all American macho guy Tyler who is basically a hillbilly with a YouTube channel, Antony Ramos as Kate’s friend and suspected love interest Javi along with David Corenswet as Javi’s suspicious business partner.

With the exception of a brief scene in New York, most of Twisters takes place in Tornado alley in Oklahoma in the mid-west, with expansive fields and dangerous tornados that can crush a village in seconds.

Five years after Kate experiences a dreadful tragedy, Javi visits her in New York and begs her to return to Oklahoma for the Tornado season as she is a great storm spotter.

Kate relents and returns with him to the Mid-West where she meets a whole motley crew of storm chasers including the brash and boisterous Tyler, perfectly played with loads of Southern Charm by Glen Powell, whose ability as a leading man is proving exceptional in the 2024 film year with leads in Anyone But You and Richard Linklater’s film Hit Man.

Tyler has to contend with a prickly Kate, wonderfully played by a blonde haired Daisy Edgar-Jones as she deals with her past trauma, her ability to chase storms and her abrupt mother, a scene stealer by Golden Globe winner Maura Tierney (The Affair) who encourages Tyler to chase after her love lost daughter.

Speaking of love, it is a great pity that director Lee Isaac Chung did not focus more on the romance between Kate and Tyler.

Instead of sexualising his main characters, both of whom are gorgeous eye-candy, they just become a crazy couple trying to survive one tornado after another, a brutal force of nature that destroys with a vengeance rodeo shows, cinemas and whole villages. Oklahoma just gets ripped to shreds while the only character that has an interesting development is Javi as he fights off corporate greed to try and save Middle America.

As tornados destroy everything, Twisters doesn’t develop beyond the action sequences and the film just presents a series of characters caught in a bizarre world of dangerous storm chasing without any cathartic release. Audiences should look out for actor David Corenswet in Twisters, the tall handsome dude who has been cast as the new Superman in the DC Comics film coming out in 2025.

Besides the tornado wranglers, Twisters doesn’t offer anything more than a series of action sequences involving an angry mother nature while the characters drift helplessly in a storm.

Twisters is a great popcorn film but director Lee Isaac Chung should stick to family dramas and not be asked to direct Hollywood blockbuster films that need a huge box office return.

Twisters gets a film rating of 7 out of 10, saved by some awesome visual effects but doesn’t really develop into a gripping narrative. Recommended viewing if you love disaster films.