Past Lives: Past Lives is the most romantic movie about love that didn't work due to circumstances that were beyond either person's control that I've ever seen. This decades-spanning story from writer/director Celine Song centers around Nora (played by Seung Ah Moon as a child and by Greta Lee as an adult) and Hae Sung (played by as a kid). Nora and Hae Sung grew up together in Seoul and developed a mutual crush when they were about 12 years old. Their time together was cut short when Nora's family immigrated to Canada shortly after they confess their feelings for each other. They re-connect in their 20's via Skype and have plenty of great conversations, but Nora's budding career as a playwright in New York City makes her hesitant to go back to Seoul-where Hae Sung is studying to become a doctor- and she decides to put an end to their talks so they don't become too attached. When they finally see each other again in their 30's, Nora is married to fellow writer Arthur (John Magaro) and Hae Sung is a newly single doctor who travels to New York for a medical conference. This meeting affects them and Arthur in ways they expect.
The grace and simplicity that Song writes and directs with is just remarkable. Through succinctly documenting the evolution of Nora and Hae Sung's relationship over multiple different periods of their lives and the circumstances that brought them together and tore them apart, she's able to make a really direct statement on the beauty and cruelty of fate/lost love and how deeply it affects each person involved. This approach gives way to a truly masterful and quietly devastating final act where they ponder on what could've been and finally come to terms that they'll never be together and Arthur realizes that Nora will never have the love for him that she has for Hae Sung. Managing to be beautiful, profound and wildly depressing at the same time is a magic trick that only a brilliant storyteller could pull off and it's mind-boggling that this is Song's first feature film. Past Lives is getting widely released this week and I urge anybody that's cool with getting their heart ripped out of their chest in a public setting to go check it out.
Grade: B+
Transformers: Rise of the Beasts: New Transformers movie, same sinking feeling of "how this movie about alien robots fighting each other not better?". While Rise of the Beasts does atone for some of the more egregious sins of the Michael Bay-helmed installments by significantly cutting down the amount of exposition, having a pair of likable human leads in Noah (Anthony Ramos) and Elena (Dominique Fishback) played by actors that have a solid rapport and eliminating the uh, questionable sense of humor, there's still far too much time dedicated to dull worldbuilding opposed to just letting the robot aliens bash the shit out of each (particularly in the tedious second act), the attempt at adding an emotional hook with the subplot surrounding Noah and his younger brother (Dean Scott Vaszquez) features way too much corny exchanges to land and despite being pretty solid overall, the action sequences lack the visual flare and dazzling sense of spectacle that Bay reliably brought to the table. Despite these flaws, Rise of the Beasts is still a decent blockbuster that's worth seeing in theaters that will hopefully be able to make enough money to allow Paramount to see the ridiculous sequel it teases in the final scene through.
Grade: B-
The Flash: What a fittingly underwhelming conclusion to the DCEU (at least the one that Zack Snyder started back in 2013). The Flash actually manages to mirror the inanity of last year's Black Adam than any of the other great, messy but interesting or just plain boring movies the brand has produced over the past decade-just with more fan service, better plotting/acting and significantly shittier visuals. Andy Muschetti (the It franchise, Mama) fares considerably worse than the other recent graduates of the horror movie-to-DC pipeline (James Wan, David F. Sandberg) as he makes a movie that is so concerned with speeding to the finish line that it forgets to be stylish, funny or emotional. The latter failure is especially egregious as its multiverse hijinks are brought on by Barry Allen's (Ezra Miller) desire to clear his imprisoned father's name (Ron Livingston-who is replacing Billy Crudup for all the people that have erased both cuts of Justice League from their memories) by going back in time to prevent the murder of his mother (Maribel Verdu) that he's been falsely accused of committing. These moments where Barry is dealing with the consequences of his actions and reuniting with his family that are supposed to be the emotional core of the movie are so brief and sudden that it was impossible for me to feel much of anything when they came along.
The aforementioned fan service-which includes the return of Michael Keaton as Batman and Michael Shannon as Man of Steel villain General Zod and some controversial cameos that anybody with internet access is probably aware of by now-isn't even aggressive enough to bowl people over with the comforting embrace of nostalgia to help overcome its narrative deficiencies like No Way Home did. Honestly outside of a spirited turn from Keaton as a washed-up version of the Caped Crusader that might not even be the same guy that appeared in the Tim Burton films, none of it even works. Shannon does a reverse Man of Steel by dialing the volume of his performance as Zod so far back that he looks he's on the verge of falling asleep every time he's on screen, the aforementioned cameo sequence is both silly and exploitative and the ending is a puzzling gag that will get a pop from such a small fraction of the audience that it's shocking that it was even included at all-especially now that it's been revealed there were multiple alternate versions shot. After watching something so aggressively mediocre and lacking in a true creative vision or even a real reverence for its characters (Sasha Calle's Supergirl-aka the only new character to show up here-is criminally underutilized), I'm deeply confused as to why James Gunn has hired Muschetti to tackle the new Batman and Robin film The Brave and the Bold. It's going to take a complete 180 in approach from what Muschetti did here for this move to not blow up in the new DC Studios head's face.
Grade: C
Extraction 2: In April 2020, Extraction arrived on Netflix and provided a dose of high-end action filmmaking that was particularly welcome during those dark early days of the COVID lockdown. 3 years later, the sequel has arrived on the streaming service and managed to top the original by a decent margin. Chris Hemsworth re-affirms why meathead action movies were his true calling as an actor by delivering gruff charisma in spades as the film's mopey, oft-wounded yet extremely gifted mercenary protagonist Tyler Rake, Sam Hargrave ups the ante by delivering bigger, crisper action sequences including a 21-minute oner that starts as a prison break and ends on a moving train that is a true piece of visceral ultraviolent art and Tomike Gogrichiani gives the film hammy shitbag villain that the previous installment lacked. Really the only thing that kind of stinks about Extraction 2 is that the final fight is way too short and lacking in gusto compared to the massive, impeccably-staged action that proceeds it. If Hemsworth, Hargrave and Golshifteh Farahani-who is great in an expanded role as Rake's second-in-command Nik-want to do a dozen more of these excellent straightforward action movies, Netflix would be silly to not write the fucking checks.
Grade: B+
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