Resurrection (2022) Review

Time: 103 Minutes
Age Rating: Violence, cruelty & offensive language
Cast:
Rebecca Hall as Margaret
Grace Kaufman as Abbie
Michael Esper as Peter
Tim Roth as David
Director: Andrew Semans

A woman’s carefully constructed life gets up-ended when an unwelcome shadow from her past returns, forcing her to confront the monster she’s evaded for two decades.

I knew Resurrection as a horror/thriller with Rebecca Hall and Tim Roth, but didn’t know much about it beyond that. It turned out to be really good, and I recommend going into it fairly blind.

While it starts off slow and fairly tame, Resurrection gets continually more disturbing as it as shocking revelations are presented. For a large portion it is difficult to figure out what is happening, and that just adds to the uncomfortable feeling. It is a paranoia thriller and does very well as that; it is frantic, anxiety and stress inducing. It feels uncomfortably grounded and is effectively dark and disturbing. Not a whole lot happens in the second act, but I was locked in and riveted. There are definitely some things in play thematically, including emotional abuse, trauma and gaslighting. I feel like the third act is going to make or break the movie for some. Without going into it too much, whereas the first two acts felt grounded and realistic, the third act goes in a somewhat different direction, which really throws you off. Not only that but the ending itself is vague, ambiguous and has you questioning what you just watched. I respect the ending but not sure I understand it yet.

The movie definitely benefits from its fantastic performances, in fact it feels more performance driven than character driven. Obviously the standout is the lead performance from Rebecca Hall, who is phenomenal here. So much of the movie relies on her and she absolutely delivered, conveying terror, trauma and guilt so effectively. One of the highlight scenes was a nearly 10 minute long monologue which was outstanding. This very well may be Hall’s best performance yet. Tim Roth is great as the scene chewing and menacing villain; even with his small screentime, he’s unnerving in his parts and a strong screen presence. There is a very good supporting cast including Michael Esper and Angela Wong Carbone. However Grace Kaufman was the biggest surprise for me as Rebecca Hall’s daughter, she felt incredibly authentic and helped make the relationship between the two characters feel real.

The film also benefits from strong direction from Andrew Semans. It constantly has a sharp and unsettling tone, helped by the striking cinematography, and the brooding and ominous score from Jim Williams.

Resurrection is a tense, anxiety-driven and unsettling psychological thriller, greatly directed and with excellent performances from Rebecca Hall, Tim Roth and Grace Kaufman. The third act might throw some people off, but I should probably like the first two acts if you enjoy other paranoia thrillers.

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The Night House (2021) Review

Time: 110 Minutes
Age Rating: Violence, sexual references & offensive language
Cast:
Rebecca Hall as Beth
Sarah Goldberg as Claire
Vondie Curtis-Hall as Mel
Evan Jonigkeit as Owen
Stacy Martin as Madelyne
Director: David Bruckner

Reeling from the unexpected death of her husband, Beth (Rebecca Hall) is left alone in the lakeside home he built for her. She tries as best she can to keep together-but then the dreams come. Disturbing visions of a presence in the house call to her, beckoning with a ghostly allure. But the harsh light of day washes away any proof of a haunting. Against the advice of her friends, she begins digging into his belongings, yearning for answers.

I didn’t go into The Night House expecting a lot. I just heard it was a horror movie starring Rebecca Hall that’s meant to be good. So I went into it fairly blind. However it was one of the biggest surprises of the year, especially for horror.

The Night House is a psychological horror focusing on a widow who is going through a journey uncovering his life and who he was. Horror movies that explore grief and trauma isn’t anything new, in fact it’s becoming more prominent and overdone these days. However for what it’s worth, The Night House breathes new life into this very specific horror subgenre and is one of the better examples of that in recent memory. There’s a lot of genuinely scary ideas as it plays on the fear and acceptance of death. When the film eventually introduces supernatural elements, it fits in well with the rest of the plot and doesn’t feel out of place. Despite how it leans much stronger into horror in the third act, I really like how subtle and less flashy the horror is in the first two acts. The scares are there, but its not to the point where it’s too jarring or takes you out of the film. Helping the movie is the eerie atmosphere, there’s always something intensely uneasy that lingers throughout the runtime of the film. It is definitely a slow burn of a horror movie, but I appreciate how it took it’s time to build up its atmosphere and tell its story. In terms of faults, I did have some issues with the ending. While I liked the direction it went in and the overall idea, the ending itself was a little too abrupt.

One of the highlights of the film is Rebecca Hall in the lead role, who gives one of her best performances yet. We spend most of the film with her alone for the most part, and she conveys so much even when she has very little support. This is her show, embodying her character’s feelings of loss and emotions when she makes some discoveries about her dead husband. The performance definitely helps the film work as well as it does. There are some decent supporting performances from the likes of Sarah Goldberg and Stacy Martin, but again this is Hall’s film.

Another strong aspect of the film is David Bruckner’s direction. Some years ago he made The Ritual, another horror movie which I thought was good. However his work on The Night House is superb and another level. I love the visuals, the cinematography was striking and made great uses of optical illusions, architecture and symmetry. The sound design is also effective, and it has a fitting score from Ben Lovett which added to the atmosphere. The film delivers in creating an eerie and creepy atmosphere filled with tension. There are definitely jump scares, especially in the third act, but they don’t feel cheap and don’t break the atmosphere its been building up.

The Night House was one of the biggest surprises of the year, especially for horror. The take on trauma and grief felt fresh, the direction is superb with a tense atmosphere, and Rebecca Hall’s performance was phenomenal. It is well worth checking out.

Godzilla vs. Kong (2021) Review

Time: 113 Minutes
Age Rating: Violence
Cast:
Alexander Skarsgård as Dr. Nathan Lind
Millie Bobby Brown as Madison Russell
Rebecca Hall as Dr. Ilene Andrews
Brian Tyree Henry as Bernie Hayes
Shun Oguri as Ren Serizawa
Eiza González as Maia Simmons
Julian Dennison as Josh Valentine
Kyle Chandler as Dr. Mark Russell
Demián Bichir as Walter Simmons
Kaylee Hottle as Jia
Director: Adam Wingard

Fearsome monsters Godzilla and King Kong square off in an epic battle for the ages, while humanity looks to wipe out both of the creatures and take back the planet once and for all.

I was looking forward to Godzilla vs. Kong quite a bit. I liked the previous movies in this recent MonsterVerse with Godzilla (2014), Kong: Skull Island and Godzilla: King of the Monsters. Even though this isn’t the first time these two iconic titans fought against each other on screen, it would be quite something to see these more recent incarnations of them fight. Godzilla vs. Kong definitely has a lot of issues on display but is nonetheless pretty entertaining and delivers on its promise.

I won’t spoil much of the plot, it doesn’t do a lot of surprising things and the plot is pretty predictable, but I think there’s some moments best experienced for yourself. The tone of Godzilla (2014) was pretty dark, Godzilla: King of the Monsters was lighter and had more jokes, but still took itself somewhat seriously. Godzilla vs. Kong borders on self awareness, and doesn’t take itself seriously. It’s a very silly storyline, even more than previous movies. One storyline is even about a conspiracy theorist podcaster teaming with a pair of teenagers to look into a conspiracy. This isn’t the kind of movie that stops to reflect on the collateral damage either. Another thing to note is that there is less focus on the humans compared to past Godzilla movies. There is a connection between an orphan girl and Kong, and I thought that part was genuinely well done. On the whole though, you don’t have any emotional connection to the rest of the characters or plot. Depending on you, that can either find all of this a good thing or a bad thing. On one hand it does feel like there’s not a whole lot of substance and that it’s just only focusing on the fight scenes. On the other hand, it’s very easy to follow, the movie flies by with a quick pace and a small runtime of an hour and 50 minutes, and it gives the audience what they want. Not to mention that the human stuff isn’t generally well received from the past movies, so there’s no half baked family drama here. The first act is pretty rough, it felt pretty disjointed and a bit all over the place, with a lot of brief exposition dumps. After the first fight between Godzilla and Kong though, that’s when the movie really picked up for me. Also without getting to into it, the third act is very satisfying. The trailers have actually done a great job at showing you glimpses big moments, but keeping much of the true highlights away from the audience until they actually watch the movie. Past MonsterVerse movies aimed to empathise with both creatures, so naturally in this movie we would have to have one of them as the hero of the narrative, this movie chose Kong. I guess it’s a bit easier to emphasize with him over Godzilla. Last little note, some of the MonsterVerse movies had end credits scenes, but this one doesn’t, in fact there doesn’t seem to be any hint or indication of a follow up movie.

The humans are always the weakest parts of these movies, and Godzilla vs Kong is no exception. However I do think that overall the characters are better than some of the past movies (though not by much), and the cast do well enough on their parts. Alexander Skarsgard, Rebecca Hall and Kaylee Hottle are the main characters in one storyline involving Kong, and Brian Tyree Henry, Millie Bobby Brown and Julian Dennison are the main characters looking into why Godzilla is suddenly attacking cities.

Adam Wingard is the director, and overall I think he did a really good job with the movie. It’s solid on a technical level and the visual effects are astounding. The first fight between Godzilla and Kong is really good, but all the fights in the second half of the movie are on a whole other level. It’s all shot and choreographed incredibly well too, with some really solid action and its very creative. You really get the feeling that this movie knows that these moments are what people are really looking for, and they deliver on them. The score from Junkie XL (Tom Holkenborg) is also really good and fits with the movie well, especially during the large action scenes.

Godzilla vs. Kong is absurd, over the top, has a predictable story, and has some thinly written characters. But it’s also incredibly entertaining, visually stunning, and has some very satisfying action. If you liked any of the MonsterVerse movies, I think you can enjoy this one. If you can, try to watch it on the big screen because it’s quite an experience. As a movie it’s not all that great, I think at least most of the other MonsterVerse movies are better than it, but Godzilla vs. Kong is still very entertaining for what it is.

The Prestige (2006) Review

Time: 130 Minutes
Age Rating: Contains medium level violence
Cast:
Hugh Jackman as Robert Angier (The Great Danton)
Christian Bale as Alfred Borden (The Professor)
Michael Caine as John Cutter
Piper Perabo as Julia McCullough
Rebecca Hall as Sarah Borden
Scarlett Johansson as Olivia Wenscombe
David Bowie as Nikola Tesla
Andy Serkis as Mr. Alley
Director: Christopher Nolan

Period thriller set in Edwardian London where two rival magicians (Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman), partners until the tragic death of an assistant during a show, feud bitterly after one of them performs the ultimate magic trick – teleportation. His rival tries desperately to uncover the secret of his routine, experimenting with dangerous new science as his quest takes him to the brink of insanity and jeopardises the lives of everyone around the pair.

I really liked The Prestige when I first saw it, I liked the acting, it was directed well by Christopher Nolan, and it was an interesting an twisty story. However it wasn’t like one of my favourite movies from Nolan, and I sort of just liked it. Watching it again made me love it however, and now it’s now one of my favourites films from him.

This generally goes for every movie but especially for The Prestige, it really is worth going in not knowing too much, and in this movie it’s better not knowing anything at all. There are many twists and turns, better left to experience for yourself. The movie is driven by the rivalry between the two lead characters played by Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman, and it’s really compelling and interesting to watch. It’s also such an original movie, I’ve seen movies of people rivalling each other, and I’ve seen a couple of movies about ‘magic’, but I’ve never seen a combination between the two before. It actually may be among Nolan’s most creative movies. On a first watch it’s really good, pretty intriguing throughout. Watching the movie on a second time is better however, you know the context of what really happened and notice certain hints that you didn’t pick up the first time. Also, you’re not spending time a lot of time trying to figure out what was going on and you really appreciate some of the foreshadowing and the like.

Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman play the lead characters Alfred Borden and Robert Angier respectively, and they are both fantastic in their parts. The two are constantly up against each other, and both effectively play complex and morally grey characters, with their conflict driving the story. Michael Caine is also great, giving one of his best performances from a Christopher Nolan movie, with this being his most active role in one of Nolan’s movies to date. Scarlett Johansson and Rebecca Hall also do work well enough in supporting roles. David Bowie also appears in a few scenes as Nikola Tesla, and he’s great in his part. Additionally, Andy Serkis plays Tesla’s assistant, Serkis always brings something to every role that he’s in and his part in The Prestige is no exception.

Christopher Nolan directed this movie excellently as expected, clearly having a more than adequate handling of the story. Wally Pfister’s cinematography is great, and the movie perfectly sets you in the time period. The scenes of ‘magic’ were noticeably presented very well. Many people have compared to Nolan’s work (mainly here) to the magicians like in The Prestige, and that’s definitely fitting, with his use of misdirection, focus and the like to trick the audience, at least on the first watch. The music by David Julyan is also pretty good and worked for the movie, but wasn’t particularly memorable on its own.

The Prestige is a fantastically put together movie, intelligent, original and engaging from start to finish. Written and directed excellently by Christopher Nolan, and performed greatly by its great cast, it’s definitely worth seeing. If you’ve just watched it once, definitely find some time to watch it again.

Transcendence (2014) Review

Time: 119 Minutes
Age Rating: Violence
Cast:
Johnny Depp as Will Caster
Rebecca Hall as Evelyn Caster
Paul Bettany as Max Waters
Kate Mara as Bree
Cillian Murphy as Donald Buchanan
Cole Hauser as Stevens
Morgan Freeman as Joseph Tagger
Director: Wally Pfister

Dr. Will Caster (Johnny Depp), the world’s foremost authority on artificial intelligence, is conducting highly controversial experiments to create a sentient machine. When extremists try to kill the doctor, they inadvertently become the catalyst for him to succeed. Will’s wife, Evelyn (Rebecca Hall), and best friend, Max (Paul Bettany), can only watch as his thirst for knowledge evolves to an omnipresent quest for power, and his loved ones soon realize that it may be impossible to stop him.

I remember looking forward to seeing Transcendence after seeing all the trailers. It had an interesting concept, a very talented cast and was directed by Christopher Nolan’s frequent cinematographer Wally Pfister. It’s just such a shame that all the talent involved never ended up amounting to anything. Transcendence isn’t an awful movie, it has some okay parts to it, it looks good and some of the acting is okay, that’s it. On the whole, it movie is just disappointing and mediocre.

There’s a huge amount of potential with this concept. Unfortunately, it doesn’t really do anything too much with it. It actually takes quite a while to get to the actual transcendence. It doesn’t help that once things get going, there’s a 2 year jump for no reason at all, after that point the movie really took a significant drop in quality. It is worth noting that despite the marketing, Transcendence isn’t a huge sci-fi thriller. That way if you end up watching the movie, you won’t be as disappointed with it. I heard this mentioned before going into it, so I wasn’t expecting the movie that was advertised, I was just going in expecting a movie and even then I was let down. It seems that it was more focused around the lead two characters played by Johnny Depp and Rebecca Hall and their relationship. That’s not a problem, it’s just the relationship and characters aren’t as interesting as it should be, you’re not that invested. There isn’t much character development except for maybe Paul Bettany’s character. The movie really wasn’t as interesting as it should’ve been either. Some aspects of the movie are interesting like the actual transcendence, other aspects just feel like typical sci-fi aspects that were just thrown in. It might have its moments but Transcendence on the whole doesn’t do enough special things to warrant grinding through the whole 2 hour long movie (which feels a lot longer actually watching it).

This cast is pretty large and talented but most of them don’t really get to do anything that great. Johnny Depp is the lead character who goes through the transcendence and he wasn’t really that great, though this time I don’t think it’s on Depp. It’s not that Johnny Depp going full Jack Sparrow or anything like that. It’s that his character really doesn’t do much, even after the transcendence. He should be really interesting, compelling or something like that, but he’s just boring. Rebecca Hall has even less to do here. As I said, a lot of the movie surrounds Depp’s and Hall’s relationship but the chemistry between them wasn’t great and the relationship isn’t that compelling or interesting, so I felt ultimately nothing in their numerous scenes together. Morgan Freeman, Cillian Murphy are fine enough but their characters aren’t really anything, so they are pretty much just playing themselves. Kate Mara is decent enough but the only actor in this movie who actually leaves a real strong impression was Paul Bettany, he was legitimately good in his role and his performance does actually add to the movie and make it a little better.

One of the highlights of Transcendence is that it is a good looking movie, this movie is shot very well. However, it’s nothing really that different from any other sci-fi movies that we’ve seen. The problem isn’t the direction. If I saw any scene out of context by itself, I would probably find it decent, but the fact that the movie looks good isn’t enough to carry it with it’s rather flawed story, characters and script.

I will say this about Transcendence, it is one of those movies that should be remade, this concept sounds like it could be something great. I’m completely lost as to why this movie didn’t work at all. I didn’t find it to be a terrible movie but it’s also not really good either. It looks good, it has some story aspects which had potential and the acting is fine enough (though only a couple actors are used to their potential), however the end product really didn’t live up to its potential. I guess there’s not harm in checking it out if you’re curious, but don’t expect anything too great.

Iron Man 3 (2013) Review

Time: 130 Minutes
Age Rating: Violence
Cast:
Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark/Iron Man
Gwyneth Paltrow as Virginia “Pepper” Potts
Don Cheadle as Col. James “Rhodey” Rhodes/Iron Patriot
Guy Pearce as Aldrich Killian
Rebecca Hall as Maya Hansen
Stephanie Szostak as Brandt
Jon Favreau as Happy Hogan
Ben Kingsley as The Mandarin
Director: Shane Black

Plagued with worry and insomnia since saving New York from destruction, Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.), now, is more dependent on the suits that give him his Iron Man persona — so much so that every aspect of his life is affected, including his relationship with Pepper (Gwyneth Paltrow). After a malevolent enemy known as the Mandarin (Ben Kingsley) reduces his personal world to rubble, Tony must rely solely on instinct and ingenuity to avenge his losses and protect the people he loves.

Iron Man 3 was the start of Marvel’s phase 2 and while most people would say that Iron Man 3 is better than Iron Man 2, there were still some criticisms of it. Iron Man 3 was a pretty divisive movie upon its release, I’m one of the people who really liked it. It still has its flaws but I still enjoy it. Iron Man 3 has even better action, good acting, a good plot and it’s entertaining. I think the majority of the criticism was because of a certain aspect of the plot, which while understandable, doesn’t drag down the movie in any way.

Iron Man 3 didn’t really play a big part in the universe, when all things are considered, Iron Man 2 is more relevant than Iron Man 3. However the story is better, instead of multiple plotlines that don’t always move well together it has a pretty controlled story that it follows and all the plotlines are interwoven together much better. Also the writing from Shane Black was good and you definitely tell. This movie is both the darkest and the funniest of the Iron Man movies and it works. Not all the aspects of the movie are great though. There’s a decision that Tony makes early on which is quite possibly the dumbest decision that he’s made, and that’s a lot considering the fact that he created Ultron later on. There is also a plot twist which will annoy some comic book fans that I won’t spoil for those who don’t know. While I can understand why people would be upset with it, it didn’t bother me a lot because it was well done in the context of the story.

Robert Downey Jr is great, it’s almost pointless talking about how great he is, he is Iron Man. This movie reminded me of Dark Knight Rises, in that there was much more Tony Stark than Iron Man and I think it really payed off in the end. The supporting actors also did good work. Don Cheadle was even better here than he was in Iron Man 2, Gwyneth Paltrow was also good here. Guy Pearce was great in his role, Ben Kingsley is good in his role, Rebecca Hall is a good actress and does fine in this movie but her character was sort of underdeveloped and so she didn’t have a lot to work with.

The action scenes here are even better than the previous Iron Man movies. Tony Stark’s suits are quite different and now he can control them without even being in them, which leads to lots of entertaining opportunities which the film takes advantage of. While the third acts of the previous films have disappointed, the third act in Iron Man 3 is great and is definitely better than in the previous films.

Iron Man 3 is a pretty good movie but I don’t know if I can call it a great movie. The acting is good, the action is good, the writing is better than the previous film and I was entertained all the way through. Sometimes there are some flaws like some convenient writing and the massive change in the comic books. The only great Iron Man movie that’s been released has been the first one, but in my opinion all of them are good.