Monster Hunter: A shift over to another iconic video game brand managed to take away a bit of Resident Evil movie franchise architect Paul W.S. Anderson's magic B-blockbuster touch. Despite some cool creature design and an unexpectedly sweet buddy rapport between leads Mila Jovovich and Tony Jaa, there isn't enough energy behind the frantic action sequences or the silly interdimensional portal fantasy storyline to make this anything more than an inoffensive yet mostly mediocre timekiller. Better luck with whatever adaptation you decide to tackle next Mr. Anderson.
Grade: C
Fatale: Fatale made me realize how much I miss seeing Los Angeles portrayed as a seedy playground of sin. Director Deon Taylor (Black & Blue, The Intruder) and writer David Loughery (Lakeview Terrace, Obsessed) gleefully concoct a warped world where everybody has dark secrets, weak wills and a strong chance of finding themselves on the business end of a bullet at any moment. The glossy cinematography, neon tinted-lighting and sportscars speeding through scenic oceanside locations ooze vintage noir sleaze and the hammy overacting from Hilary Swank as an unhinged detective and Michael Ealy as a bumbling idiot sports agent whose affair with said cop turns his life upside down is top-notch. With a better final act and some further embracing of the absurd developments that the plot is generously sprinkled with, this could've been a Basic Instinct/Wild Things-level trash classic.
Grade: B-
Songbird: I guess the likes of Demi Moore, Craig Robinson and Bradley Whitford were desperate to return to work once filming was allowed to resume in LA last summer because Songbird likely would've been a Syfy Channel Original if it wasn't for its ensemble cast. While it's clearly not in great taste to make a movie that uses COVID as the backdrop for a cheesy dystopian romance story while the pandemic still rages on, the biggest problem with Songbird is that the script is a comically unfocused trash heap of narrowly developed ideas that tries to juggle far too many subplots for its sub 90 minute runtime and it ends up feeling like every bit of the miscalculated opportunistic rush job that it so clearly is.
Grade: D
News of the World: Whether its a Jason Bourne movie or a fact-based thriller (Captain Phillips, United 93), the unifying link between all of veteran director Paul Greengrass' films is that they're visceral stories that rely on primal feelings (fear, rage, adrenaline) to drive the narrative. Those defining characters of his filmmaking style make him the wrong choice to helm a slow-burning road movie set in the Old West about the father/daughter-type bond that develops between a retired solider turned traveling deliverer of the news (Tom Hanks) and the young German orphan (Helena Zengel) he takes in after finding her in the rural Texas woods. Greengrass simply has no feel for how to tell this story-stepping on emotional moments with his signature hyperactive editing and stripping the Old West setting of its danger-filled, lawless mystique with bland direction that doesn't have even a hint of atmosphere to it. Hanks and Zengel give good enough performances to atone for some of the awkwardness present, but when the captain of the ship doesn't know how to handle the particular vessel they've been hired to drive, that shit is going to sink even if some of the deckhands perform their job admirably.
Grade: C-
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