The Weekly Gravy #127

Marlowe (2022) – ***

Maybe it was the low expectations, but I’m a bit baffled as to just how weak the reviews for Marlowe have been. No, it doesn’t come near the noir classics it pays homage to – and it probably could’ve chosen a stronger source material than the 2014 novel The Black-Eyed Blonde by John Banville (writing as Benjamin Black), especially since several of Raymond Chandler’s novels and a number of his stories featuring the titular character have not been adapted, at least recently or notably. And yes, it could’ve used a touch more real style, its high points notwithstanding.

But for all that, I found it a decently entertaining throwback, bolstered by the presence of numerous capable actors doing solid work with the period costumes and settings, the snappy patter, and the turns of fate and character which mark the genre. And it wisely acknowledges that Philip Marlowe, as played here by Liam Neeson (69 during production, now 70) is no spring chicken, even as he doggedly pursues a case which nearly gets him into a whole lot of trouble.

Hired by Clare Cavendish (Diane Kruger) to find her missing lover, Nico Peterson (François Arnaud), he learns that Nico was killed in a hit-and-run outside a private club run by Floyd Hanson (Danny Huston). But when he tells Clare, she claims that Nico has faked his death (the dead man’s head was crushed beyond recognition), leading Marlowe into a convoluted web involving Nico’s shady business dealings, Clare’s movie-star mother Dorothy Quincannon (Jessica Lange), slimy Southern-fried gangster Lou Hendricks (Alan Cumming) and his valet Cedric (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), and a mix of other questionable characters.

The plot, of course, gets rather messy after a while, and even at the end I wasn’t really sure how all the pieces fit together – but it didn’t bother me too much. The Big Sleep is pretty impenetrable as well, and while Marlowe is a long way from The Big Sleep, it’s likewise more interested in atmosphere and character than storytelling.

That it was shot in Barcelona (subbing for 1939 L.A) and Dublin (interiors) might partly explain why it doesn’t quite nail the atmosphere; some of the sets are quite good, but some feel too clean, too polished to ring true. Or maybe it’s the cinematography, which achieves some effective compositions and really shines when we explore the lurid depths of Hanson’s club, but elsewhere feels a bit flat and generic. Or maybe director Neil Jordan is just past his prime – Greta was okay, but it’s been a while since he’s had a film I’d call an unequivocal success, critical or otherwise.

Whatever the case, the film holds the attention pretty well without quite gripping it. That goes for the performances, which are uniformly solid, but not brilliant. Akinnuoye-Agbaje arguably makes the best impression as the right-hand man who shows hidden depths when they’re needed (the most cathartic moment in the film belongs to him), but Neeson, while a shade too reserved in the early going, is a solid weary Marlowe, and Kruger, Lange, Cumming (who’s quite fun), and Huston (has any actor been so born to play slimy villains in period pieces?) all do fine work; Colm Meaney and Daniela Melchior are welcome presences but are seen too briefly.

High marks also go to the costumes, David Holmes’ bluesy score, and Jon Batiste’s end-credits ballad “The Light Shines Brightest in the Dark.” It all makes for a film I can’t really rave about, but when set against the reviews (24% on Rotten Tomatoes, 41 on Metacritic), I feel compelled to defend it as a decent light entertainment, especially if you’re a genre devotee. But you could also just rewatch The Big Sleep.

Score: 72

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023) – ***

While Quantumania‘s reviews are nothing to be proud of (they’re barely better than Eternals‘) it’s a bit surprising to me that it still has twice as high a Rotten Tomatoes score as Marlowe – but maybe critics expected more from a classic noir homage from an Oscar-winning filmmaker than they did from a Marvel film in the post-Endgame era, which for my money has been solid but rarely better than that; I liked No Way Home quite a bit, but nothing else has quite risen above a mid ***½ for me.

I should note that, while Quantumania gets *** from me, it just barely gets over the hump while Marlowe is a mid-high *** in my book; that puts it rather low among Marvel’s filmography and below even the first Ant-Man, which I didn’t especially love (I rather liked the second film, though). I’m not sure how best to explain why Quantumania falls so short of the mark, except perhaps to say that, while it’s not as dependent on other Marvel media as, say, Wakanda Forever was, it feels distinctly unnecessary in of itself, serving mainly to introduce the villainous Kang the Conqueror (Jonathan Majors), who’ll appear in the second season of Loki and, presumably, additional films.

Scott Lang, aka Ant-Man (Paul Rudd) is enjoying the recognition he receives as a member of the Avengers and has found happiness in his relationship with Hope van Dyne, aka Wasp (Evangeline Lilly). But he’s having issues with his teenage daughter Cassie (Kathryn Newton), who’s become an activist and has had brushes with the law. She’s also been working with Hope’s father Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) on a device which allows them to remotely explore the Quantum Realm, where Hope’s mother Janet (Michelle Pfeiffer) had been trapped for a number of years.

Janet is reluctant to discuss the Realm or her time there, but on seeing the device tries to shut it down, to no avail as she, Hank, Cassie, Hope, and Scott are all sucked into the Quantum Realm, a bizarre place full of strange plant and animal life – and sentient beings, many of whom know Janet from her years in the Realm, and many of whom are fighting Kang, an incredibly powerful and ruthless being who was exiled to the Realm and was initially an ally of Janet’s until she discovered his true nature.

Now, Kang has colonized the Realm and is anxious to return to the upper world and exert his will upon every world he can reach, but he needs the technology Hank developed, and he’s willing to threaten Cassie to get Scott’s help – but Hope, Janet, and Hank, along with the Quantum Realm resistance and a very unexpected source of help, aren’t about to let Kang win. At least not this round.

The best parts of Quantumania are those which focus on the Quantum Realm and its inhabitants, which allow for some visual imagination in the sets, costumes, and character designs – there’s a gelatinous fellow whose secretions enable you to understand all languages, and another character with a spotlight for a head – and for some of the more effective humor on display, courtesy especially of the sardonic telepath Quaz (William Jackson Harper). That said, the Realm feels like something out of Guardians of the Galaxy, and with the third Guardians film is coming this summer, there’s even less reason to see it.

It doesn’t help that it’s rather lacking as an Ant-Man film. Scott feels like an afterthought much of the time, and the film, if not dour, is oddly short on laughs; it’s telling that Michael Peña’s motor-mouthed Luis is nowhere to be seem, while Hope’s presence feels even more obligatory than Scott’s. We get a lot more of Cassie, which isn’t much of a blessing, as she’s rather annoying; I can understand why the film doesn’t take her idealism down a peg, but that doesn’t mean we don’t roll our eyes when Scott tries to counter her self-righteousness and fails.

Janet and Hank fare better, mainly because Pfeiffer and Douglas are old pros; she gets across the weight of Janet’s haunted years in the Realm and he mostly sits back and has fun with the bizarre settings and situations. But the real standout is Majors, who relishes Kang’s ruthless megalomania and brings his clipped diction and offbeat intensity to what, on the page, is a pretty generic character. I’ll be glad to see him reprise the role (and glad to see him play the antagonist in Creed III in a week or so).

There’s not much to be said for Peyton Reed’s direction or Jeff Loveness’ script (Janet’s evasiveness about the Realm gets really tiresome); Christophe Beck’s score, at least, is a little better than average, and while the film has taken some flak for the visual effects used to depict M.O.D.O.K. – a cyborg henchman of Kang’s who turns out to be Darren Cross (Corey Stoll), the villain of the first film – it’s worth nothing that M.O.D.O.K. is meant to be off-putting. That’s not to say the execution is faultless (though there may be reasons for that), but it’s not as bluntly inept as one might suspect.

All in all, Quantumania is passable as a big-budget entertainment and tolerable but unnecessary as an entry in the MCU. It has its points of interest and amusement, and I did rather enjoy the final note of uncertainty on Scott’s part – rather justified, I’d imagine – but in of itself, there’s not much of a story being told. Sure, it’s kicking off Phase Five of the MCU – but if what you want is a good movie, there are better options – from Puss in Boots to Cocaine Bear.

Score: 65

After Yang (2021) – ****

In a sense, After Yang owes a lot to what came before it. With its approach to the subject of artificial humanity and the role which memories play in the identity of such beings, it evokes Blade Runner – one might even call it a nice-core riff on that bleak sci-fi noir. And the interface used to catalogue those memories – like a star-scape in a forest – brings to mind the rows of memory bubbles in Brainstorm. But its depiction of the future, and of the human condition, is warmer and more hopeful than Blade Runner‘s, and unlike Brainstorm, which linked its premise to a rather generic narrative, it’s free to tell the story it wants to tell.

Sometime in the future, Jake Fleming (Colin Farrell) runs a struggling tea shop, while his wife Kyra (Jodie Turner-Smith) appears to be an architect or engineer. They have a young daughter, Mika (Malea Emma Tjandrawidjaja), who was born in China, and to help take care of her and teach her the language and culture of her birthplace, they have Yang (Justin H. Min), an android they bought slightly used; Mika loves him, and Jake and Kyra clearly regard him as a part of the family.

But one day, Yang malfunctions, and Jake’s efforts to get him fixed go nowhere; the manufacturer can only recommend replacing him, and independent repairman Russ (Ritchie Coster) is troubled by the discovery of a device in Yang’s memory core, which he suggests might be spyware. Jake goes to Cleo (Sarita Choudhury), a museum curator who’s studied “techno sapiens” for years, and with her assistance discovers what the device contains: hundreds of brief moments recorded by Yang over the years, including scenes of Mika’s early life and moments shared with a woman Jake doesn’t recognize.

Eventually, Jake will find her; Ada (Haley Lu Richardson) has her own connection with Yang, which the Flemings never knew about, and which is tied in with Yang’s previous experiences – which are far more extensive than Jake ever suspected.

Yang’s past, like Jake’s tea shop, Kyra’s profession, the notion that these androids are being used for covert surveillance, and the whole question of what exactly “clones” are in this future world, are among the elements the film introduces without fully developing. Writer-director Kogonada’s first film, the wonderful Columbus, kept its focus on the protagonists played by Richardson and John Cho, and as a result worked somewhat better. That’s not to say that this film doesn’t work – obviously it works quite well – but it’s on the low end of **** compared to that film.

It works best when, as Columbus did to such effect, it lets the characters and their interactions blossom and breathe; take the scene where Jake remembers how he shared his love of tea with Yang and explained why he dedicated his life to pursuing the perfect cup. The flow of the writing, the sensitivity of the direction, and the relaxed naturalism of the acting combine to evoke the energy of a real conversation.

But it also works in showing those flashes of memory which Yang captured for purposes as complex and elusive as human nature itself (Kogonada’s editing is quite good), in crafting a consistent, believable future world with subtle but pervasive Asian influences (the production and costume design is superb), in bringing its characters, especially the family at its core, to tender life, and in being a generally exquisite bit of filmmaking; aside from the overly dim lighting, Benjamin Loeb’s cinematography is crisply composed and quietly beautfiul.

The acting is likewise on point: Farrell neatly conveys Jake’s quiet anxiety and subtle emotional journey, Min is suitably controlled but never stiff or flat, Richardson is luminous (if too briefly seen), Turner-Smith is natural and sympathetic, and Tjandrawidjaja, while a shade self-conscious at times, is generally quite good as the young girl dealing with death for the first time. It also has a very nice score by Aska Matsumiya, with a theme by Ryuichi Sakamoto, and it makes excellent use of the song “Glide,” which was actually written for the film All About Lily Chou-Chou; otherwise, it would probably be my own Original Song winner for 2022.

At least the film makes my Adapted Screenplay list, being based on the short story “Saying Goodbye to Yang” by Alexander Weinstein; I haven’t read the story, so I can’t say if the film introduces new elements it doesn’t quite make the most of, or if the story dealt with those elements in a manner which worked just a bit better on the page than it might have on the screen. But that’s too negative a note to conclude my review of a film which really is quite lovely, thoughtful, and affirming. So I’ll just say that I can’t wait to see what Kogonada does next.

Score: 87

Cocaine Bear (2023) – ***½

One has certain expectations of a film like Cocaine Bear, and while it subverts those expectations to some degree, it manages to do so, by and large, for the better. Yes, it features a fair amount of cocaine-fueled antics on the part of a black bear, based loosely on a real bear which got hold of some coke which had been dropped from an airplane and died, because you can only put so much of that stuff into your system before your heart stops. (Such considerations do not present an obstacle to anyone in this film, human or ursine.)

But director Elizabeth Banks and screenwriter Jimmy Warden opt to modulate the tone of the film, balancing scenes of Yogi Bear on yeyo with relatively grounded scenes following the various human characters whose paths cross with said bear in the course of one very eventful day. Some of them, like Daveed (O’Shea Jackson Jr.), Eddie (Alden Ehrenreich), Eddie’s kingpin father Syd (Ray Liotta), and dogged detective Bob (Isiah Whitlock Jr.) are after the coke itself. Some, like young Henry (Christian Convery) and Dee Dee (Brooklynn Prince), are playing hooky in the woods. And some, like Dee Dee’s mother Sari (Keri Russell) and forest ranger Liz (Margo Martindale) are just trying to be responsible adults, only to come face-to-face with a wild animal on drugs.

That’s not even all the characters, human or otherwise, who get mixed up in this wild story, but part of what makes Cocaine Bear better than it might’ve been is how well it balances the character beats with the moments of gruesome action, and how well it moves between the various groups of characters and allows the various plot threads to play out at a natural pace. Much of the time, it’s wry and cock-eyed rather than farcical, which I personally prefer. It makes the moments which go over-the-top stand out all the more.

I won’t spoil those moments, except to say that the stunt performers and makeup artists earned their pay; the blood flows and the gore shows, whether it’s in man vs. bear or man vs. man (as in a brisk, brutal fight in a bathroom). It’s all leavened with laughter, for while the film isn’t a laugh riot, it manages to keep one smiling more often than not.

It certainly helps that the cast is uniformly game for the ridiculous paces they’re put through. None of the performances are brilliant or even really memorable – it’s more about the premise than the people – but there’s just enough here to allow some, like Jackson (amusingly put-upon), Convery (“That kind of thing stays with a man”), Ehrenreich (sympathetically miserable), Whitlock, and Martindale (quintessential character actors, the both of them) to shine at least a bit, and to allow the rest to turn in solid work in a film whose selling point is, after all, a coked-out bear.

The bear itself, mixing on-set stunt work with CGI, is fairly well realized, although I would’ve preferred a greater reliance on practical effects, which would’ve made it feel even more like a product of the 80s – but then, I think it should’ve been shot on film, or at least tried to evoke the period a bit more with its visual scheme; it looks fine, but it looks like a polished contemporary film, and this premise cries out for some vintage grit.

Still, it’s about as good as it could’ve been without taking that extra measure of care in bringing to life the notorious decade in which it’s set. As high-concept, hard-R horror-comedies go, it’s pretty solid – rather better, in my view, than Violent Night. And as movies about bears on drugs go, it’s easily the best I’ve ever seen – unless there’s something I don’t know about Paddington.

Score: 80