Artemis Fowl (2020)

 

Twelve year old Artemis Fowl Junior lives at Fowl Manor with his widowed father, who is also named Artemis.  Artemis Senior goes missing from his boat, accused of the theft of several priceless artifacts found aboard.  Artemis Junior then receives a call from a hooded figure. Holding the elder Fowl captive, the hooded figure gives Artemis three days to recover the Aculos, which Artemis Senior has stolen and hidden. 

The junior Fowl is perplexed by all this until his bodyguard, Domovoi "Dom" Butler, shows him a hidden library where generations of Fowls have catalogued proof of the existence of magical creatures.  Suddenly his father's obsession with folklore makes a lot more sense to young Artemis.

Young Artemis may only be twelve, but he's also a genius (or so the film tells us), and he immediately swings into action with a plan to capture a member of the fairy community and utilise the captive as leverage to acquire the Aculos and save his father.  However, as events will soon reveal, there is a significant flaw with this plan: the fairies don't know where the Aculos is, either.  Not that they would be keen to hand it over even if they were.

Ostensibly based on the novel of the same name, Artemis Fowl the movie actually retains only the basic "Artemis kidnaps a fairy" premise, wedging in a whole bunch of new motivations for this venture and then having the actual caper play out in a very different, far less coherent manner.

Because oh boy, this film makes no sense.  The hooded figure's plan makes no sense.  Artemis Junior's plan makes no sense.  The fairy authorities response to the situation is incoherent.  The whole film is nothing but sound and fury, signifying nothing, with lots of empty spectacle and characters making bold claims about their capabilities that are never upheld by the actual on-screen events.

Some of the issues with the film clearly stem from the fact that it is expending a lot its limited run time (it's only 95 minutes) on establishing the world of magical creatures, the existence of a nefarious mastermind, and all sorts of other "We Want This To Start A Franchise" cruft.  I certainly understand their hope of turning this into a series - there are eight books available to adapt, after all, and that Harry Potter series did quite well with similar themes - but as is often the case in "let's start a franchise" films, this comes at the expense of actually making a good movie.  Surprise surprise, bad films very rarely launch franchises.  

And make no mistake: this is a bad film.  It's muddled and awkward and feels almost like it has been cobbled together from three different versions of what the film might have been.

The Mandalorian, Season 1 (2019)

 

Five years after the fall of the Galactic Empire, a lone Mandalorian bounty hunter is hired to retrieve a package by remnant Imperial forces.  Despite not being any great fan of the Empire, the bounty hunter takes the job.  A bounty is a bounty.

Well, maybe not.  The 'package' turns out to be a tiny alien child of a species unknown to the bounty hunter.  Anyone viewer remotely familiar with Star Wars, on the other hand, will have little difficulty recognising the kid's significance, despite the lack of a species name.

"Yoda's species" has not yet been given an official name

It's no surprise at all from here, of course, that (a) the Force Is Strong With This One, and (b) the Mandalorian is going to renege on his plans to give the kid to the Imperials.

As you might also expect, the Imperials are deeply unhappy about this, and the Mandalorian must stay one step ahead of their forces - which are still the most numerous and powerful in this sector of the galaxy - while trying to learn more about the child, the child's species, and how he might get the kid back to its people.

The Mandalorian wears the influence of the western genre even more openly than the original Star Wars.  'Mando' as he is most commonly called by the other characters, is clearly modelled on the enigmatic drifter character that is common in many western films: a deadly, taciturn gunslinger with a chequered past who is now trying to Do The Right Thing.  Similarly, many of the enemies he fights are just as clearly inspired by the bandits and thugs of western films.  Just in case you missed all that, though, it sets a lot of this season's activity on planets whose environments also invoke westerns.

This is not a subtle or nuanced show.  That applies not just to its genre-emulation, but also to its overall plotlines, characterisation, and action choreography.  Bad guys are Bad because they are Bad, and do Bad Things regardless of the sense of doing them.  Fight scenes are built firmly on "do what's spectacular" rather than what is smart, and enemy skill fairly noticeably waxes and wanes as is narratively required.

But then, subtle and nuanced story telling has never really been a part of the Star Wars franchise.  It's bombastic approach has always been best suited to Big Quests and Big Space Battles and Big Monsters, leavened with occasional doses of humour and Over The Top Emotions.  And The Mandalorian nails that formula quite faithfully.

If you just want uncomplicated Star Wars-y Star Wars, you will get it here.

Free Guy (2021)

 

Guy has a pretty good life.  He gets up every day and goes to work as a teller at the bank, along with his best friend Buddy, the bank's security guard.  He enjoys his coffee along the way and greets everyone he meets with a cheery grin.

I mean sure, the bank gets robbed multiple times a day, and things are always blowing up around those odd 'sunglasses people' who run around the place, but hey - that's just life, right?

Well, no, it's not life.  Unbeknown to Guy, he is actually a non-player character (NPC) in a massive multiplayer online game.  Those 'sunglasses people' are the players, logging in and performing quests - such as robbing the bank - for in-game rewards.  Guy's not supposed to have a life at all, or be aware of his own existence.

But Guy is aware of his own existence.  And he's about to become aware of a whole lot more, when he meets 'Molotov Girl', the in-game avatar of one of the real world players.  Infatuated by Molotov Girl, Guy steals a pair of sunglasses for himself, starts to learn about the in-game rewards system, and begins a career as 'Blue Shirt Guy'.

Guy's antics draw a lot of attention both in-game and in the real world, but for a long time everyone assumes he's just a clever hacker - the idea that he might be a rogue NPC is too ludicrous to consider.  But the truth is that Guy isn't just a single rogue; his awakening is rubbing off on other other NPCs around him.

Of course, out in the real world there's no understanding of the fact that the NPCs in the game are becoming self-aware, and plans are afoot to destroy the whole place in order to make way for the sequel.  It's up to Guy to find a way to save himself and his world.

Free Guy is a fun action comedy.  Getting the full effect of all the humour probably requires at least some knowledge of online games, and it certainly slips in a lot of background sight-gags for those who do have that knowledge.  Fortunately the in-story need for Guy to have the reality of his 'world' explained to him does give the script a sound reason to dump a lot of exposition for those audience members - such as my wife - who lack that context.

The film definitely profits from a likeable cast, led by Ryan Reynolds doing his Ryan Reynolds thing, and by the freedom that "it's actually a video game" gives them in terms of creating wild and wacky action sequences.

My only complaints are relatively minor ones: I think that the final act runs a smidgen too long, and that the evolution of the romantic subplot is a bit awkward and revolves heavily around something rather dubious that someone did in the real world.

Overall, this was a fun ride.

Wandavision (2021)

 

Newlywed superheroes Wanda Maximoff and Vision move into their new home in the small town of Westview.  But something is wrong; something to which they are oblivious.  I mean, for one thing, we last saw vision getting his head torn apart by Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War.  So he's very, very dead.  Also, there's the fact that their life is in black and white and has a 50s sitcom laugh track.

Welcome to the weird and wacky fever dream that is much of Wandavision, as these two super-powered lovebirds navigate dinner with the boss, neighbourhood politics, sudden parenthood and oh yeah - the fact that their world is spiralling through a series of TV's best known sitcom settings, from I Love Lucy to Bewitched and The Brady Bunch and then on to Family Ties and Full House.

The true story of what is happening here is an intriguing one, which is revealed only slowly, as we get to see more and more of what is happening outside Westview.  Secrets aplenty will be uncovered, and new villains - and heroes - revealed.  The truth is also not exactly a 'sunshine and rainbows' kind of thing, and I think that the fact that it is revealed through the lens of sitcom silliness is a genuinely very clever storytelling device.  The madcap antics and slapstick situations help balance the show, preventing it from becoming too grim without undercutting the emotional heft of what's actually happened.  Clever stuff.

It also helps, of course, that the show has a very good cast, who all do good jobs in their roles.  And then there's the weight and connectivity of the Marvel Cinematic Universe behind it, too.  WandaVision is not afraid to bring back familiar faces from the wider MCU, such as Kat Dennings's well liked Darcy Lewis - frequently the most entertaining person in the first two Thor films - and to trust that its audience are sufficiently familiar with the wider setting that they'll get that little thrill of recognition from realisations like "Oh! This is the grown up version of the little girl from Captain Marvel!".

Even if you don't have that thrill though, the show still works.  My wife is a casual fan of the MCU, enjoying most of the films and shows as we watch them but not at all familiar with the comics or really paying attention to 'oh this is that person from a movie they made ten years ago', and she enjoyed this.

Another solid MCU offering.  I look forward to seeing how the repercussions play out in future films and TV shows.

Red Notice (2021)

 

Two thousand years ago, Roman general Mark Antony gifts Egyptian queen Cleopatra three bejeweled eggs as a wedding gift symbolizing his devotion.

Over the centuries the eggs become something of a talismanic prestige item for both wealthy collectors and the thieves who like to rob them.  The most notorious examples of the latter are a shadowy, possibly fictional figure known as The Bishop, and the irreverent, wise-cracking Nolan Booth.

Booth makes a play for the first of the eggs, but his ingenious scheme is interrupted by FBI Special Agent John Hartley.  Despite Booth's best efforts, Hartley manages to capture him and recover the egg - but the item then vanishes from custody. So when Hartley's credentials suddenly fail to check out, both men find themselves sent to a Siberian prison.

It seems The Bishop is definitely not fictional, after all; and it is she who has engineered this whole situation.  The two men will have to put aside their differences if they want to break out of prison, recover the egg, and turn the tables on her.

Of course, that will be easier said than done, with plenty of mad cap action and 'surprises' along the way.

You'll notice I put 'surprises' in quotes, and there's a very simple reason for that: I don't think that anything that happens in Red Notice will actually come as a surprise to any remotely savvy audience member.  It's a very by-the-numbers film in terms of both plot and characters.

As you can see from the image above, those characters are played by three talented actors.  Alas, the film doesn't give them anything but the most basic version of their most familiar archetypes.  Dwayne Johnson is big and stoic; Ryan Reynolds is quippy and sarcastic, Gal Gadot is sultry and dangerous.  These are roles they could all perform in their sleep.

This is very much undemanding, unambitious, "comfort food" film-making.  You'll probably be tolerably entertained for most of the run time, but it's definitely all very much a grab bag of familiar tricks and tropes cobbled together in an undemanding formula.

Carmen Sandiego, Season 1 (2019)

A thief on a mission finds an abandoned baby girl on the side of a road in Buenos Aires, Argentina.  The child is raised at V.I.L.E Academy, a secret facility for training the world's greatest thieves and assassins.  Known as "Black Sheep", she has the skills to be the academy's star pupil - but some on the staff do not want to accept her into their program, considering her too wild and undisciplined.

And perhaps they have a point, because when Black Sheep discovers the nefarious intent behind the skills she has learned, she breaks out of the Academy and devotes herself to thwarting V.I.L.E's plans, adopting the sobriquet "Carmen Sandiego" as she does so.  Unfortunately, her efforts to disrupt V.I.L.E mostly just look like burglaries and other crimes to the authorities.  Carmen thus soon finds herself having to evade various police agencies as she pursues her quest.

On the plus side, Carmen has a wealth of skills - and a handful of faithful friends - to assist her in staying one step ahead of her opposition.  But will it be enough?

This is the fourth TV show inspired by the 1985 educational game Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?, and the first to position Carmen in a wholly heroic role.  It reminds me strongly of Disney's Kim Possible in its overall structure.  We have an insanely skilled redheaded female lead, the brilliant hacker who assists her, a slightly buffoonish male sidekick, and a host of quirky adversaries with pun-tacular names.

That said, I very much enjoyed Kim Possible, so a show that echoes that same structure is not necessarily a wholly bad thing in my eyes.  I also like that this show works in little info dumps about the cities and countries that Carmen visits.  It's a nice nod to the educational focus of the original game on which it is based.

I enjoyed this first series of Carmen's adventures.  Probably not enough that I will watch more of it - I think I'd rather try other shows I haven't seen, first - but enough that I certainly didn't regret the time I gave it.  If 'good guy crook' crime capers are your thing, you might want to give it a try.

Love & Monsters (2020)

 

A world-killing asteroid plunges toward the Earth, dooming all life on our little blue-green planet.  But humanity bands together and does what we do best: wreck stuff.  The asteroid is destroyed by waves of warheads.  Crisis averted!

Well, it emerges, not so much.  Fallout from the asteroid debris mutates cold-blooded animals across the globe, transforming them into massive monsters that kill off billions of squishy humans.  The few survivors are those who made it to underground shelters.

Joel Dawson is one such survivor.  That's the good news.  The bad news is pretty much everything else.  Joel was separated from his girlfriend Aimee during the evacuation, and although she survived, Aimee is in another settlement, beyond miles of deadly, monster-filled wilderness.  This leaves Joel as the only single person in his community.  Which is frustrating.  Worse still, Joel has a tendency to freeze in dangerous situations, which means he feels pretty much useless.  The fact that everyone else is very understanding of his limitations does not help him feel better, quite the opposite.

After one too many self-humiliating moments over his inability to cope with danger, Joel decides to quit his settlement and cross the wilderness to Aimee.  Can he somehow bumble his way to her, despite the deadly monsters roaming across every mile between them, or will be get eaten in the first 30 seconds?

Well, it probably won't be the latter: that would make for a very short film indeed.  But it safe to say that Joel's journey won't be quite what he expects it to be.

Love and Monsters is a mildly comedic adventure story with a good cast.  It's not especially innovative in what it does, but it executes its story of discovery (in multiple senses of the word) quite well and manages to squeeze in both a few laughs and a couple of touching moments during its course.

If the premise sounds like something you'd enjoy, this is worth a watch.

My Name (2021)

 

Yoon Ji-woo's father has been publicly named as a key member of the Dongcheon criminal cartel.  This leads to her being ostracised at school as well as being hassled by the cops who are watching her apartment in the hopes of catching the fugitive.

On Ji-woo's birthday, her father sneaks past the police cordon to bring her a gift.  Unfortunately, a hooded figure ambushes him at the apartment door and guns him down.

When the police are unable to identify the killer, the distraught Ji-woo goes to Choi Mu-Jin, her father's close friend and head of the Dongcheon cartel for help.  Although reluctant at first, Mu-jin takes Ji-woo under his wing, encouraging her to become strong enough to get her revenge. He also reveals that he has the gun that killed her father: it's a police issue weapon, which explains why the cops never found the assassin.

Mu-Jin places Ji-woo in his fight training gym with other gang recruits and personally gives her hand-to-hand training.  The plan: once her training is complete she will be given a new identity - Oh Hye-jin - under which she will infiltrate the police and find her father's killer.

My Name is a South Korean action-drama serial of eight episodes.  Its concept of a gang member infiltrating the police reminds me somewhat of the 2002 Hong Kong film Infernal Affairs (remade in the US as The Departed), though it's certainly a very different tale over all.

The mystery of her father's death will of course be more complex than Ji-woo/Hye-jin expects.  I don't think that a genre-savvy audience will be as surprised by the twists and turns as our protagonist is, but the plot developments are executed well and the show maintains tension throughout. It also features a wide variety of excellent action sequences.  The people in charge of the fight choreography really know their stuff.

If cops and gangsters media is at all your thing, this is worth your time.

Space Sweepers (2021)

 

In the year 2092, Earth has become nearly uninhabitable. The UTS Corporation builds a new orbiting home for humanity with clear air and water; however, only an elite few are permitted to ascend to this green and bountiful land.

Many non-citizens find work as 'Space Sweepers', collecting debris from space to sell to UTS.  Make enough cash and you can buy your way into citizenship.  For most, of course, that dream never eventuates.

The most notorious crew amongst the hardscrabble space sweepers are the crew of the Victory; four self-centred wild cards who are more than willing to poach a cargo from under the noses of the other ships.

The latest cargo they find includes quite the surprise: a robot in the shape of a small girl, which contains a powerful weapon of mass destruction.  According to news reports, this robot-child is a key element in a planned terrorist attack.

The crew of the Victory react to this development with their usual greedy recklessness, planning to sell the kid back to the terrorist organisation.  As their efforts to do so unfold, however, hidden truths about the child, about UTC, and about each of them begin to come out.  And perhaps the four most deadbeat, cynical and self-absorbed space sweepers in the solar system are going to show a side of themselves that no-one (least of all them) expects.

This South Korean science fiction film is an action-comedy.  It's got a good cast, good effects and some genuine laughs, and is ultimately a very satisfying ride.  However, I did find it a little difficult to get into at first.  This was largely due to the fact that the crew of the Victory are initially quite unpleasant people.  Ultimately though it emerges that their unpleasantness actually serves an important narrative purpose.  When the film starts the crew are unbridled capitalists in an unbridled capitalist system, tearing down others in a desperate effort to get ahead, while actually going backwards with ever short-sighted money grabbing decision.

At the core of Space Sweepers, you see, is a strong criticism of unbridled capitalism.  This is a film that celebrates the power of compassion and co-operation ahead of competition and self-interest.  The crew's journey throughout the film clearly shows this: each of them begins it alone, unhappy and slowly sinking into deeper and deeper debt.  Only by choosing a less selfish path and acting for the betterment of society as a whole can they break out of that slow downward spiral.

Good stuff.