David R. Walker

Posts Tagged ‘Rege-Jean Page’

Black Bag

Director: Steven Soderbergh

Cast: Michael Fassbender, Cate Blanchett, Tom Burke, Marisa Abela, Rege-Jean Page, Naomie Harris, Gustaf Skarsgaard, Pierce Brosnan

Running Time: 1 hour 33 minutes

Film Rating: 7 out of 10

Contagion and Logan Lucky director Steven Soderbergh is back with a new uber cool spy thriller, slick and dark but unfortunately not very sexy.

Soderbergh’s latest film Black Bag assembles an ensemble cast including Oscar winner Cate Blanchett (The Aviator, Blue Jasmine), Oscar nominee Michael Fassbender (12 Years a Slave, Steve Jobs) alongside Tom Burke (Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga), Marisa Abela (Back to Black), Naomie Harris (Spectre, No Time to Die, Moonlight) Rene-Jean Page and Pierce Brosnan in a film that reads more like a play than a cinematic event.

Naturally Fassbender and Blanchett play the coolest hippest London couple on the planet as elegant spies George Woodhouse and Kathryn St Jean who suspect that their fellow employees of stealing a destructive cyber file called Severus from a secretive intelligence agency known as the National Cyber Security Centre.

The fellow spies are invited for a dinner party at their swish London pad, whereby all the jealousies and treachery emerge as each guest does their best to camouflage their deception. It’s an elegant dinner with traitors in which George Woodhouse, brilliantly played by Fassbender is keen on catching out one of his guests.

The guests include Freddie Smalls played by Tom Burke who could be having an affair with another lady besides his volatile girlfriend Clarissa, played with all the sharp tongued energy portrayed in the hit TV show Industry by Marisa Abela.

Then there is the dashingly handsome Colonel James Stokes played by Rege-Jean Page who is having a sexual relationship with the company psychologist Dr Zoe Vaughan wonderfully played by Naomie Harris.

So three potential couples, a destructive cyber file stolen by the Russians and a mysterious trip to Zurich make up the mysterious thriller Black Bag which is more like a contemporary version of Luigi Pirandello’s play Six Characters in Search of an Author.

Black Bag is well acted but unfortunately the film is too dark and sombre, with a surprising denouement.

The most sophisticated part of the film is the complex marriage between the two main characters both superbly played by Blanchett and Fassbender. The next best scene features a lie detector.  

Black Bag does not feature much action and while each actor do their best with a confusing and obscure script by David Koepp who doesn’t clearly identify who the hero and villain are. But maybe that’s the point.

If audiences are looking for a conventional action film, Black Bag is not it. This film will find it’s audience much like the dinner hosts find out who the traitor is. Pierce Brosnan is excellent in the small part he has.

Black Bag is obscure, fascinating and interesting but it is not a riveting film. This rather strange mystery thriller gets a film rating of 7 out of 10 and will have a unique appeal.

Black Bag is recommended viewing for those that enjoy unconventional spy thrillers with an elegant twist.

Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves

Directors: John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein

Cast: Chris Pine, Michelle Rodriguez, Hugh Grant, Rege-Jean Page, Justice Smith, Sophia Lillis, Chloe Coleman, Daisy Head, Bradley Cooper

Running time: 2 hours and 14 minutes

Film Rating: 7.5 out of 10

Thank you to UIP for the invitation for the Film Premiere held at Suncoast Cinemas on Tuesday 28^th March 2023

Spiderman: Homecoming screenwriting duo John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein take on the director’s chair in the big screen adaptation of the role playing game Dungeons and Dragons in a lavish fantasy adaptation entitled Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves which premiered at the South by South West Film Festival in Austin, Texas in early March 2023 https://www.sxsw.com/ .

What the directing duo perfect at the beginning is the casting in Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves which features a gorgeous but funny male lead, Chris Pine (Hell or High Water, Wonder Woman) as Edgin, the manipulative hero and as the villainous and vain enemy, Forge wonderfully played with a British panache by Hugh Grant (Four Weddings and a Funeral, Florence Foster Jenkins).

In between the villain and the hero is a host of sidekicks characters including action woman Michelle Rodriguez taking a break from the Fast and Furious franchise to star as Holga, Chloe Colman to star as Edgin’s daughter Kira, screen newcomer Rege-Jean Page as the mysterious fighter Xenk, Justice Smith (Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom) as the young wizard Simon and the beautiful Sophia Lillis as the changeling Doric.

Filmed mostly in Belfast, Northern Ireland, the directing duo definitely take inspiration from HBO’s Game of Thrones and created a similar slightly medieval allegorical universe complete with dragons, both fat and vicious, mazes with strange creatures in it and wizardry galore but to make this pure fantasy epic work so brilliantly is the superb on screen chemistry between all the cast and particularly between Chris Pine and Michelle Rodriguez and of course between Hugh Grant and the rest of the cast as he tries to fool everyone into believing that Forge is a benevolent dictator, when in fact he is just a conman.

At 2 hours and 15 minutes, viewers will get their money’s worth in a dazzling and lavish fantasy epic which will suitably satisfy fans of the D and D games and its superb reincarnation as a cinema franchise. Most definitely the scriptwriters and directing duo had to make an impressive franchise debut which will attract fans of fantasy films and they have cleverly pivoted the storyline to attract younger viewers as they also hint at a potential sequel.

By far the funniest scene in the film is when Edgin and the gang visit the graves of dead soldiers as they try and resurrect the dead to question them about a vastly powerful helmet which can protect the wearer from pervading evil sorcery.

The film’s middle section could have been edited, but overall, Dungeons and Dragons: Honor among Thieves is a fantastic family action film bound to keep fans enthralled with its spectacular visual effects. For its pure fantasy, Dungeons and Dragons: Honor among Thieves gets a film rating of 7.5 out of 10 and is strictly recommended for fans of this genre.