LIFE

Movies Reviews for September releases

Compiled by Danny Villalobos and Catherine Engstrom-Hadley

Slice

The film starts with a barrage of technicolor classic horror font credit rolls. A chain smoking pizza boy walks up to make his delivery, but his throat is cut by an invisible force before he can escape. The movie takes place in Kingfisher, a small town that houses over 40,000 ghosts. The ghosts are segregated into the poorer area of town, and the living on the nicer side. The ghosts and humans seem to have lived in harmony until the pizza boy is slain. Accusations get tossed around and chaos shortly follows for all residents, dead or alive.

For a smaller, independent film, it was a star-studded cast. Chance the Rapper made his acting debut as Dax Lychander, a 500-year-old werewolf who “Just wants to deliver quality Chinese food, at affordable prices”. Cast members also include Zazie Beetz, of Deadpool 2 and Atlanta, Paul Scheer from The League, and Rae Grey from The Walking Dead. The film includes cameos from Hannibal Buress, Joe Keery, Chris Parnell and others.

The movie doesn’t try to disguise the fact that it’s a lower budget independent film. They seem to embrace it and let it lend to the high levels of camp and shlock in in the plot and filming. I loved the subtle nostalgia of the special effects makeup, including a thriller-esque werewolf costume. Where it lacks in special effects, it makes up for in plot originality. During the world premiere live stream Paul Scheer said, “Everyone was working […] to make it the best” and that effort shows on the editing, costumes, makeup and writing in this movie.

Slice feels like you are watching something your best friend wrote for you, like you are in on the joke from the second the film starts rolling. It takes interesting turns and doesn’t pretend to be anything but itself. Slice is available to stream on iTunes.

The Nun

Another film that adds to a franchise is The Nun, directed by Corin Hardy and produced by James Wan the director behind the horror film favorite Saw (2004) and The Conjuring (2013).

I spent too long to get my thoughts on this film– it offers almost nothing. It’s just another horror film that just gives its audience cheap jump scares and a creepy atmosphere. It’s annoying by how little it gives.

The characters are slow, underdeveloped, and the usual dummies in a tropey horror film that keep falling for tricks. It’s difficult to understand how a priest (who did an exorcism before the events of this film) keeps falling for demonic tricks.

Character curiosity only leads to a predictable sequence of fright.

The first scene of the film is perhaps the only part worth watching. There’s nothing else that this film gives.

To call this film forgettable is too much of a compliment.

Peppermint

Starring Jennifer Garner and directed by Pierre Morel, Peppermint is an action film about a mother who places a vendetta on a dangerous drug lord and corrupt city officials.

This is an unfulfilling film; lazy script, odd editing, a nu-metal soundtrack that makes the film feel like it came out of the early 2000s, and poorly written characters.

Despite all this, it seems that the whole cast gave made it worth their time and stood up as professionals. Not a single actor gave a bad or questionable performance, though none particularily stood out, except for Jennifer Garner’s portrayal of the film’s protagonist Riley.

Jennifer Garner gives a good performance and is the only thing that makes this film worth watching. Sadly, the subpar elements of this film will hinder Garner’s performance to one that is not talked about this year or the years going forward.

White Boy Rick

Directed by Yann Demange, White Boy Rick is the story of young Richard Wershe Jr. or better known by his alias, White Boy Rick, during the height of the crack epidemic in Detroit during the 1980s.

Starring big names such as: Matthew McConaughey, Bruce Dern, YG, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and even a cameo from Detroit rapper/native Danny Brown. It also stars some emerging talent as well: RJ Cyler, Bel Powley, and Richie Merritt. The two former have appeared on screen before, however this is Merritt’s first role in film. All gave solid performances.

The trailer is better than the actual film; now I’m not suggesting that this film sucks… it’s just underwhelming. For the time and setting that this story takes place, it would be expected that the writers and director could tell a story with a complex narrative and criticism of the drug war, Detroit’s decline, and also its racial politics. But all of this is barely explored which makes this film disappointing.

The Captain

Originally titled Der Hauptmann, this film was first released in Germany last March. The U.S. version first hit theatres in late July, though didn’t reach mainstream channels until September, just in time to save me from the disappointments thus far.

The film is based on the real life story of the Executioner of Emsland. Max Hubacher plays Willi Herold, a separated soldier who comes across the luggage of a Nazi captain. To survive being arrested for desertion he impersonates a high ranking Nazi official who is sent to the front by Hitler himself. Willi soons finds himself in complete control of a concentration camp full of soldiers who deserted like him. From that point forward, the audience witnesses the heart of cruelty.

Much of this film evokes of Philip Zimbardo’s infamous Stanford Prison Experiment from 1971, which studied the psychology of everyday people given complete authority over prisoners. Perhaps this film should be viewed as a horror film due to its horrific display of absolute power.

The obvious observation of how power corrupts is an essential theme of this film, but it also explores other elements such as changing identity, fascism, and ethical dilemmas. Be warned, the film contains intense and cruel depictions of war crimes.

The Predator

The Predator is the fourth film in the Predator franchise (Aliens vs. Predator not included) and hopefully it’s the last one.

Behind the new film is director Shane Black, the director responsible for 2016 fabulous neo-noir comedy film The Nice Guys.

The first film, Predator (1987), starring Arnold Schwarzenegger is considered one the best action films to come out of the 1980s. With its antagonist, a space traveling alien who hunts down the galaxy’s most ferocious species for sport (or Yautja), being one of the most recognizable and beloved villians in the sci-fi genre along with its counterpart the Xenomorph from the Alien franchise.

The first film of the franchise is the fan favorite out of the series. The first three films share a common theme of fear when being hunted down by a creature who wants to keep your bones as hunting trophies. Shane Black’s new entry to the franchise scraps this fear aspect for a film that leans more towards the action comedies of this current decade. The result of that is disappointing.

For characters who have just come in contact with an alien for the first time, all of them just seem excited to fight it. As in past installments all the characters who ran into this creature would run away and find a way to survive immediately. It all lead to suspenseful scenes. Even big man Arny was scared of this beast, so the decision to switch that great aspect to these toothpicks chasing this beast down is absurd.

Action wise, it does have the blood and gore as to be expected, but it’s bothering to see a lot of it be dragged down by bad CGI. Furthermore, the physics of this film are bothersome as well, it doesn’t make sense how these guys keep taking blows from this creature.

It’s an overall mess.