The summer of women empowerment movies seems to continue, though this one didn’t resonate quite as much as Wonder Woman did. This movie was very much a spin on James Bond, but with a strong female character in the lead role. The story is not as strong as it believes it is. There is a lot of action and that takes away from the hollow takeaway. The star of the movie is Lorraine, an otherwise unnamed spy who works for British intelligence. She is tasked with acquiring a list of all spies ever during the falling of the Berlin Wall in Berlin itself from a Russian defector and a fellow British spy. There are tons of things that get in the way to getting the list out, but ultimately the spy overcomes all obstacles to succeed.
I’ve never been a huge fan of spy movies. While I do love action movies, the predictability of knowing there are going to be dozens of betrayals makes the movie tiresome, and there might be SPOILERS ahead. I wonder if I’m just burned out on the idea. Charlize Theron is stunning as the blonde bombshell that beats the stuffing out of her attackers. I do find it interesting that the movie takes a page from Daredevil and the pummeling scenes continue for quite long periods of time, no enemy going down with just one hit, either from a fist or a bullet. James McAvoy plays opposite Theron as another spy, one who’s allegiance we’re constantly reminded need to be questioned. She also meets a French operative played by Sofia Boutella. There is a calm humanizing aspect to Theron’s interactions with Boutella, but the pairing still seems strange and caustic. There is a particularly graphic bedroom scene shared between the two that is jarring to watch. It also minimized the impact/effect of Boutella on Theron, more on that later. While I can’t say I didn’t enjoy the movie, it had little staying power and didn’t inspire me as Wonder Woman did. However the two movies could not be any more dissimilar save for the fact that both are led by strong female characters.
With respect to the Hina test, this movie gets a barely passing grade. Yes, the movie had a strong female character in it. Yes, there was one minority character in it, but she was (SPOILER) killed during the movie, bringing some question to the fact that either the director thought he would vary the concept of ‘bury your gays’ in his movie. It was commendable to see Theron’s spy played as bisexual. It brought that decision into question by killing off the love interest. Most spy movies do this, though, so then I’m not sure if this is falling into a trope, or into an inevitable trap for the story itself. I kept thinking, after McAvoy kills Boutella, how interesting it would be to see Theron reunite with her somehow. To me, that would have made the movie, the story, more interesting. A missed opportunity. This movie is entertaining. For $7, it was well worth seeing.
I might be trying to get back into going to the movies on a regular basis (hey, I have $15 in AMC bucks – very exciting!). As I’ve said countless times before, horror movies are pretty formulaic. Part one, establish a lovable loser type character. Part two, let lovable loser see a glimpse of what it would be like to not be loser through some sort of supernatural means that said loser doesn’t understand. Part three, everyone dies/suffers consequences. This is pretty much that, but slightly worse because the teen actors are kind of annoying, except it was nice to see Barb from Stranger Things alive and well!
The plot of the story is pretty simple. Young girl walks in on her mother committing suicide. Fast forward and her dad, for some reason dumpster dives as a career (Ryan Phillippe, what happened to you?) and finds something that he cleans up and gives to her. She can’t open it, takes a pic of it to school to her Chinese teacher (her high school teaches Chinese?) and ends up making a wish while holding it. Wackiness ensues.
Some slight SPOLIERS ahead. Let’s face it, horror movies have a tough act to overcome. At some point, most scares have been done. Jump scares still get me to jump, but the cumulative effect is long gone. The rules of the movie didn’t seem to make sense either. The music box the dad gives his daughter is supposed to provide seven wishes (with no catches, which is kind of nice), but requires a blood price, ie, someone you care about/know dies. The variety of people who are killed strained the rule quite a bit.
From the perspective of the Hina test, the lead was a girl, however selfish and stupid she was. Her friends comprised of a wide variety of people. It frustrated me that the friend who died was an African American gamer and a friend of a friend who helped her translate the Chinese, Asian, was killed. But Barb, from Stranger Things and the boy who she wanted to love her (white) were unharmed. I’m giving half points for having the diversity, but then killing off said diversity. It was cool to see Art from Orphan Black as the friend of the dad. I was worried Art was going to get killed.
The movie is something you might watch on TV, but there is no staying power. The main girl doesn’t evoke any sort of real sympathy. I don’t want to be That Person, but I also found her not attractive at all. A movie like this would have been slightly more interesting if the main character had been a person of color. The movie had potential for something more and clearly just gave up.
I believe this is the fourth or fifth reboot of Spiderman I’ve seen. There were at least two cartoons and three different movies. While we were teased this Spiderman in the last Avengers movie, this was the movie that let him stand on his own two feet. Before getting too far, I would like to point out, why is it the last two onscreen Spidermen were both British? Both Andrew Garfield and Tom Holland are Brits. Are there no American actors that can embody the wall crawler?
Unlike most super hero movies, this one does not open with an origin story. In this iteration of Spiderman, the fans are treated to a seeing Spiderman/Peter Parker after he has teamed up with the Avengers. The first sequence follows Parker as he is anxious to leave school and get out to be a super hero. It is a really cute sequence and proves how young Parker is compared to all the other super heroes. The only part of the origin story that the audience sees is his close friend Ned, finds out about him and tries to help him (the formulaic buddy part of the movie).
While there is nothing really new that this movie brings to the table, it tries new things with mixed results. There may be SPOILERS beyond this point. There was a lot more diversity to be seen. The friend group at Peter’s science school was made up almost exclusively of minorities. It was a nice change of pace. Considering it was a special science school, it isn’t a reach to believe that the student body would be more diverse than your average school. I did find it slightly frustrating that Peter, the white kid, was of course the smartest and best at everything. I realize that is who he is in the comics, but it would have been a nice opportunity for the movies to diverge a little. Having said that, the friends surrounding Peter were well placed. I expect to see a lot of humor in Spiderman movies. I did wish that this version had Spidey himself being slightly funnier, but given that he’s new at super-heroing, it isn’t really surprising that the wise cracks weren’t constant.
There were quite a few cameos. The best was Captain America, by far, in this videos being shown at Peter’s school. Iron Man appeared a few times, but was more of a scolding figure than a guide. It set the tone that Peter was on his own, not a part of the Avengers, but someone who could assist them as needed. The stage has been set, another superhero for the Marvel Universe. After Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield, the debacles of those two movies, this was a breath of fresh air. The movie and story were both enjoyable. We saw the movie in one of those fancy Dolby theatres and I was surprised the surround sound didn’t blow me out of my chair. The Marvel movies are always great and this was no exception.
With respect to my Hina test – the movie passes, but not by much. The movie centers around two white men, Spiderman and the Vulture. To make matters worse, so to speak, the guidance Peter gets is either from Happy, Tony Starks’ assistant or something, or Tony himself, also, all white men. The supporting cast is wonderfully diverse and it gave me hope for future movies. The female characters, especially Michelle, were strong, not always in need of Peter’s help, certainly not as Peter.
