Annette

It's been a while since I went on Amazon Prime for a movie. By a while, I actually mean a month. So here I am with the musical Annette, the first English film by French director Leos Carax (Holy Motors), who co-wrote the screenplay with the songwriters, Ron and Russell Mael of the band Sparks. What did they create?

"What?" might be the question.

Henry McHenry (Adam Driver) and Ann Defrasnaoux (Marion Cotillard) get married. He's a stand-up comedian and she's an Opera soprano. They have a baby girl, Annette, who is played by a marionette (Yes, seriously). Henry's career flatlines while Ann's star rises. A particularly unfunny routine, and Henry's outrage over the audience's outrage, seals the deal.

One day, Henry and Ann go on their yacht. She goes overboard and he's stuck with the puppet. Eventually, Henry realizes Annette is a budding soprano herself. So he and Ann's former accompanist (Simon Helberg) decide to take her on tour. How long will that last before Henry's attitude craters his life?

That describes around 90 minutes of the film.

It opens with an ensemble number as the cast (Sparks and Carax, included) start recording the opening number, So May We Start, before they leave the studio and walk around LA to sing it. Yeah. Anyway, it's about forty minutes before Annette puts in an appearance. The lead-up is filled with OK songs that are mainly talk-sung. Expect a lot of repeated lyrics; Ann and Henry's love song is We Love Each Other So Much, a title that makes up about half the lyrics. Henry's meltdown song an hour in, You Used To Laugh, is the first entertaining song. It's surprisingly entertaining for this kind of song.

Henry is crass and rude, while Ann's simply good. We don't get context to how their relationship started. But it deteriorates somewhat quickly. Henry is somewhat sympathetic when he sings out his insecurities. But he's so hard to like. Their story is so dull I barely cared about the tragedy. It eventually got better when Annette took center stage. Her rising stardom made me think of a wackier take on Tommy. The wackiest part comes from a court clerk (Kait Tenison) suffering from hay fever.

What I found objectively perfect is its technicalities. The cinematography and production design is superb. Whether it's Annette's surreal concerts or Ann's opera performances (which has her step into a real forest at one point), this is a great movie to look at. Henry and Ann's mad waltz during their stormy yacht cruise is perfectly weird; the rear-projected storm fits the mood. This and You Used To Laugh are highlights of the editing and sound design. Annette herself sits atop the uncanny valley; there's still some great artistry to make her move.

Annette is a visually appealing and dramatically dull musical story. Its title character needs some time to get used to. But it makes some thematic sense, overall. It's certainly destined to join The Rocky Horror Picture Show as a midnight movie one day. Indeed, I found plenty of opportunity to call back at the movie during its 140 minutes. That made much of the movie bearable. See the movie for much more I haven't alluded to. It's free on Amazon Prime.

Free Guy

Free Guy had to wait a year to come out. But I'm glad it's here now. It's a delightful video game-inspired comedy from director Shawn Levy and writers Matt Lieberman and Zak Penn. Here's the review, at long last:

The main Free Guy is Guy (Ryan Reynolds), a bank teller in Free City. Everyday, he greets his goldfish, gets the same coffee and goes to work, which is robbed several times a day by folks in sunglasses. The same folks who shoot up, smash up and loot up the city. But everyone's chipper about it. There's a simple explanation for that...

That's because Free City is an online video game. Guy is one of its many NPCs. One day, Guy meets Molotov Girl, the avatar of programmer Millie Rusk (Jodie Comer), and decides to deviate from his pre-programmed routine. He stops the next robbery and steals the player's sunglasses which lets him see power-ups, the HUD, etc. Guy decides to level up with good guy missions. He becomes an internet star overnight.

It turns out that Free City was built with stolen code that Millie and her ex-partner, Walter (Joe Keery) developed. She needs proof, though, and Guy is the perfect partner for her mission. She doesn't have much time as the game's publisher, Antwan (Taika Waititi), is ready to release Free City 2. And that means a digital apocalypse for Free City 1. 

Its main Guy is walking optimism, which is bound to captivate and/or frustrate cynical players. His existential quest inspires other NPCs to reevaluate their lives. His existential crisis halfway through leads to an interesting discourse on the reality of fictional characters. Overall, he's sure to endear himself to his real-life audiences. The script's only flaw is Guy getting rebooted and temporarily memory wiped; it disrupts the flow of the impending digital apocalypse.

What about the supporting cast? Millie and Walter have a strong romantic subplot, while Antwan is a perfectly funny and dangerous manchild. Molotov Girl and Guy's own digital romantic subplot is as real as any great romcom's. The wanton mayhem in Free City and its NPCs' chipper reaction to it all is hysterical. It gets profound when they reevaluate their digital lives; it's especially so with Guy's NPC best friend, Buddy (Lil Rey Howery).. The best surprise is Antwan's secret weapon, Dude, played by Aaron Reed with Reynolds' deepfaked face.

Oh yeah, the deepfaked face. It's so seamless and unnerving at the same time. It's an hysterical combination. There's also some obvious CGI used for some outstanding video game feats. A highlight is a scene where Guy evades two moderators (Walter and his co-worker, Mouser) in a shifting construction site with super shoes. Production Designer Ethan Tobman perfectly renders Boston into Free City. Editor Dean Zimmerman gets a few laughs by switching between worlds. Let's not forget a good score by Christophe Beck.

Free Guy seems like a bright and earnest action comedy. It actually is. It's also a smart and profound existential video game-inspired story. Free City's world gives one a lot to think about. See it in theaters if you can; stay safe if you do. It'll also make a great home matinee once it's ready. Just see it on the biggest screen you can. It's sure to be a winner in this dour year.

The Suicide Squad

Among the many issues people had with 2016's Suicide Squad was its poor attempt to mimic Guardians of the Galaxy. Well, now Guardians writer/director James Gunn is in charge of The Suicide Squad. The first film was OK but this is significantly better.

As before, Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) assembles some of the most unsavory characters for a secret mission. Their mission, that they have no choice but to accept, is to infiltrate the Banana Republic country of Corto Maltese. They have to infiltrate the secret Jotunheim base and destroy all traces of something called "Project: Starfish." Anyone who falls out of line gets blown up by an implanted bomb. That includes Savant (Michael Rooker), the first character we even meet. He understandably AWOLS after fellow Squad member Blackguard (Pete Davidson) sells them out to the enemy, who massacres them.

Meanwhile, the actual "heroes" undertake the mission. They're Bloodsport (Idris Elba), Peacemaker (John Cena), Ratcatcher II (Daniela Melachor), Polka-Dot Man (David Dastmalchian) and King Shark (Sylvester Stallone). They meet up with first team survivors Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie) and Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman). They also agree to help the Corto Maltese Freedom Fighters liberate the country. It gets serious when they discover the Junta's secret weapon is the ominous Starro the Conqueror.

Gunn's prologue quickly establishes the wacky carnage to come. The first team is hopelessly outclassed by the Corto Maltese military. Some more so than others, especially T.D.K (Nathan Fillion), a reworked version of a ludicrous character called Arm-Fall-Off Boy. The aptly named Weasel (Sean Gunn) doesn't make it to shore, at least initially. I know I complained about the first film's Slipknot dying so quickly. But the first team's decimation is the punchline to a hilariously gruesome joke.

The actual squad is a likable bunch of anti-heroes. They have their own issues to deal with in addition to Starro and the Junta. Polka-Dot Man's insecurity makes him the most sympathetic of the Squad. Bloodsport's strained relationship with his daughter gives him a compelling arc. King Shark's a laid-back guy who needs to watch his cravings for people. Ratcatcher II's good nature makes her the most endearing squad member. Peacemaker's absurdly blind jingoism goes from hilarious to creepy to sad. Their raid on what turns out to be the Freedom Fighters' camp barely dents their likability.

The Squad's elaborate and sometimes goofy costumes were designed by Judianna Makovsky. The makeup department adds some strong help to these designs. They fit in right well with the story's wackiness. Starro, in particular, is a goofy and creepy CGI monster. The same goes for his little Starros which latch onto unfortunate faces. King Shark is a much more pleasing CGI creature ... even when he eats people. John Murphy's score contains an alluring track when King Shark meets some fellow sea creatures. It's a strong setup for another gruesome punchline.

The Suicide Squad is a brutal yet endearing tale of super misfits and their problems. Its unlikely heroes are as memorable as its director's other super team. Its human villains are OK but its alien villain is better. Its final battle and resolution are awesome displays of super feats and super blackmail. See the film to get what I mean. See it all the way through to see the fates of a few characters. See it on HBOMax or theaters Now. 

Jungle Cruise

We could have had a Jungle Cruise last year.

But, no. Disney's film of its famous boat ride took a detour to this year. Director Jaumet Collet-Serra and his many screenwriters turned it into a mix of Pirates of the Caribbean and The African Queen (itself an inspiration for the ride). How does this mixture work?

It's 1916 and World War I is happening. Lily Houghton (Emily Blunt) and her brother, McGregor (Jack Whitehall), go to the Amazon to search for the "Tears of the Moon," a tree whose petals cure anything. They were laughed out of the Royal Society for proposing their exposition. So they go there themselves. They have a MacGuffin arrowhead to help them find it. They hire Frank Wolff (Dwayne Johnson) as their "skippy."

Meanwhile, Prince Joachim of Prussia (Jesse Plemmons) pursues our heroes. He revives the cursed conquistador Lope de Aguirre (Edgar Ramirez) and his men to help him find the tree. While Frank normally captains staged Jungle Cruises for gullible tourists, he now has to guide Lily and McGregor past these real dangers and more to get to the tree.

Let's start with the characters. Frank is a groaner pungeon master with a twist of a backstory. He's a good guy, especially when McGregor all but comes out to him. McGregor, meanwhile, is quite a fop but he proves himself capable. Lily's story sounds like nothing new but it's sufficient. Paul Giamatti does well in his small role as Nilo, Frank's pompous Italian "boss." The villains, Prince Joachim and Aguirre, are fine; slight edge to Aguirre and his creepy conquistadors, though.

How creepy are the conquistadors? One's merged with a beehive, and Aguirre himself is filled with snakes. Its quite obvious CGI, as are most of the animals, but the designs are perfectly creepy. The action scenes are mostly entertaining, especially Lily's escape from Joachim at the start. But Lily getting nabbed by surprise mercenaries just before she sets sail is jarring. The finale is overlong and somewhat tedious. At least there's a good score from James Newton Howard to listen to. Still, the most memorable piece is the opening instrumental of Nothing Really Matters.

I actually rode the Jungle Cruise in 2016. So how does the movie compare to the ride? Other than it's longer? It's an OK action film that could have shaved a few minutes. It's 127 minutes long, but it's a bit too long. I don't think it's gonna start a franchise. But who knows. It's cheaper to see it in theaters than on Disney Plus right now. But it'll be free on the latter in a few months or so. So take your pick. As for me, it makes me wish I could be on the ride again.