Girl Week 2020: Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn)

31 Days of Horror: Doctor Sleep

August: Osage County

Directed by John Wells.

2013. Rated R, 121 minutes.

Cast:

Meryl Streep

Julia Roberts

Ewan McGregor

Benedict Cumberbatch

Chris Cooper

Abigail Breslin

Juliette Lewis

Margo Martindale

Dermot Mulroney

Julianne Nicholson

Sam Shepard

Misty Upham

Beverly (Shepard) is a man at the end of his wits. He's been married to Violet (Streep) forever and ever. She's a mean old biddy who has been stricken with mouth cancer, but keeps sucking down cigarettes. She medicates herself with as many pain killers as she can get her hands on. He prefers to drink away his pain. One day, Beverly goes out and doesn't come home. After a few days, Violet calls everyone in the family she can get a hold of to help her solve the mystery and the whole dysfunctional clan shows up. Her daughter Ivy (Nicholson) appears first, since she lives in the area. Then, in some order I can't exactly recall, the house fills up with up with people. There's daughter Barbara (Roberts), along with her husband Bill (McGregor), and their daughter Jean (Breslin). Daughter Karen (Lewis) arrives with "this year's man," Steve (Mulroney). Violet's loud sister Mattie Fae (Martindale) rumbles in, dragging her hubby Charles (Casper) with her. At some point, later on, Mattie Fae's and Charles' son Little Charles (Cumberbatch) joins the fray. Every one of these people has serious issues with themselves and each other. You know what that means. Oscar baiting ensues.

In seemingly trying to garner accolades for its cast, August: Osage County comes off more as a collection of clips worthy of awards ceremonies than the gripping drama it impersonates. The actors take turns showcasing their chops. More accurately, headliners Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts take lots of turns while the others get a scene or two apiece. Luckily, it's an amazing cast. Just about everyone is at their fiery best. Every line is delivered with passion and conviction.

Playing our main protagonist, Streep inhabits her role so fully, it's scary. She makes the cigarette between her fingers and the cloud of smoke swirling around her head while puffs of it punctuate her speech integral parts of Violet's persona. She's clearly a fire-breathing dragon once she gets riled up. While Streep is constantly on the attack, Roberts is busy counter-punching. A strong presence in her own right, she never withers beneath her co-star's massive light. Instead, she fires back in verbally violent fashion, commanding the screen as she does.

As stated, the rest of the players all knock it out the park when they step up to the plate. Margo Martindale provides the thunder to Streep's lightning. she is appropriately loud and angry. The difference is where Streep is sinking her fangs into everyone in sight, Martindale is usually trying to make someone do something. As her husband, Cooper fares best amongst the men in the cast. It's not that anyone is bad. Even the weakest links in the cast, either Nicholson or Breslin, are both very good. Ladies and gentlemen, when the masters decide to chew scenery, this is how they do it.

That I've spent most of my review to this point gushing over the acting begs the question 'why don't I love this movie?' The answer lies in something I snuck in a little earlier. It plays like a collection of clips. Due to the talent on display, they are immensely watchable. However, what links them just feels like a writer purposely throwing fuel on various fires to create melodrama. Between every rant, another problem is added to the mix until it all becomes too much for the movie to bear. Eventually, I just rolled my eyes as the next thing always and inevitably happens. In that way, it's very Tyler Perry-esque. We get one earth-shattering revelation after another until the film collapses beneath its own weight. What we're left with is a movie that is much less than the sum of its parts.

Jack the Giant Slayer

Directed by Bryan Singer.

2013. Rated PG-13, 114 minutes.

Cast:

Nicholas Hoult

Eleanor Tomlinson

Ewan McGregor

Stanley Tucci

Eddie Marsan

Ewen Bremner

Ian McShane

Christopher Fairbank

Bill Nighy

Mingus Johnston

Ralph Brown

By now, you've probably heard the tale of Jack and the Beanstalk. Jack (Hoult) is a poor farm boy and things aren't going so well. He is sent out to sell his horse so his family can buy some food. Instead of money, he swaps the animal for some supposedly magic beans which is none too pleasing to the person who sent him. Lo and behold, the beans get planted accidentally, resulting in a beanstalk that stretches to the sky. At the top of this beanstalk is a man-eating giant and a princess to save. If my memory serves correctly.

Basically the same thing happens, here. The first difference is that we're dealing with an entire race of giants. Another is that along with Jack, King Brahmwell (McShane) sends a rescue party after Isabelle (Tomlinson), the princess. Among them is his top advisor, Lord Roderick (Tucci), and his top guard Elmont (McGregor). Elmont is a faithful soldier, but Roderick wants to take over both realms as he is in possession of a magic crown enabling him to do so. Oh, almost forgot something you probably already know. Jack is falling hard for Isabelle.

There is another difference more major than any I've mentioned thus far. In this world, the magic beans and the giants are part of a famous legend on par with the boogeyman in the eyes of many. A select few, the king and Roderick for sure, know the stories to be true. This adds a misplaced and unnecessary layer of self-awareness. Instead of the tale just being, we have to hear constantly about how they all thought it was just a myth. By itself, that wouldn't be terrible, but it's talk that goes nowhere and doesn't enhance the film. It just pads the run time with more needless exposition than we already get from the rest of the movie.

Everything else that happens is paint-by-numbers. It's a fairy tale told from Prince Charming's Jack's point of view, but that's hardly enough of a change in perspective to make a difference. In fact, it's only a very slight change. Normally, these are male-centric stories told through the eyes of the damsel in distress and the wicked person who put her there. This dispenses with any faux-girly pretenses yet still gives us the same outcome. We know what's going to happen, when it's going to happen. The kids in the target audience know it, too.

What all of this menas is Jack the Giant Slayer is a movie that has its worth resting completely upon its spectacle. At being one, it's a modest success. The beanstalk itself is fabulously rendered and causes all sorts of mayhem. The giants are also pretty well done. A few of them even have personalities which helps the cause a bit. The action scenes, which almost always involve the stalk, work out solidly. Our hero, portrayed by Nicholas Hoult of Warm Bodies is rather bland, here. As the villain, Stanley Tucci is typically excellent. Neither is enough to save or sink this movie. It can only be what it is: pretty, somewhat fun, and entirely derivative.

Salmon Fishing in the Yemen

Directed by Lasse Hallström.

2011. Rated PG-13, 107 minutes.

Cast:

Ewan McGregor

Emily Blunt

Kristin Scott Thomas

Amr Waked

Tom Mison

Rachael Stirling

Catherine Steadman

Tom Beard

Jill Baker

Yemeni Sheikh Muhammed (Waked) is an avid fisherman and called a visionary by Harriet (Blunt) who handles his affairs in Britain. She’s been tasked with helping him introduce salmon fishing to the Yemen. This is problematic because there are no salmon native to the region and the region doesn't seem conducive to salmon. For help, she contacts expert Dr. Alfred Jones (McGregor). He assesses the situation and tells her to go suck an egg, more or less. However, he’s coerced into helping her by his superiors, themselves under pressure from Patricia Maxwell (Thomas), the Prime Minister’s press secretary. She’s desperately trying to find something to show that British-Yemeni/Islamic relations are improving and this seems to be the most viable option. To make it work, Dr. Jones and Harriet will have to work closely together on repeated business trips to the Yemen where they’ll stay at the Sheikh’s palace as the only two guests. In case you weren't sure where this is going, the doctor’s marriage is on the rocks and Harriet’s boyfriend, a soldier who is sent to Afghanistan (“or somewhere”) goes missing-in-action. Cue romance.

The most striking thing about Salmon Fishing in the Yemen is its visuals. It’s no special fx extravaganza, but the area where the Sheikh does his fishing is beautiful. We get to see it from a number of angles, when it’s quiet and when water is raging through its alleys. Unfortunately, there’s an entire movie between those shots that isn't nearly as riveting. It moseys along without any real sizzle until it tries to inject some late. Before then, McGregor fawns over Blunt because his wife only cares that he keeps his job so the mortgage will continue being paid. By the way, she’s got a high-paying jet-setting job herself. Meanwhile, Blunt goes from being charming to blubbering incessantly about her presumed dead boyfriend. Both performers turn in solid work, but things never get to the point where it makes us tell ourselves that we just have to see how this is going to turn out.

Two characters break up the monotony, but only one does it in a good way. Our sheikh is burdened with giving the movie depth. Sadly, he strains to do so before ultimately failing. He plans on using the whole fishing thing as a grand metaphor. We get it. It’s nothing to spend a lifetime pondering, but it’s okay on its own. What undermines it is the steady stream of Yoda-isms he drops in conversations. He sounds like a walking talking fortune cookie. On the other hand, Kristin Scott Thomas is of greater effect as the relentless brash press secretary. She’s funny and lively. The movie instantly gets better when she’s on the screen.

Eventually, Dr. Jones and Harriet’s relationship goes through some typical rom-com contrivances we see coming from miles away and the local, unapologetically Muslim contingent provides some opposition to the sheikh. The issue with the former is predictability. To be fair, suddenly going in an unexpected direction probably wouldn't work for this movie so we can let this slide. More problematic is the latter. Despite all the lip-service paid to working on Britain’s relationship with Islamics, it comes across as hypocritical. It’s because “the other,” Muslims in this case, are painted as savages. The one who embraces our (western) ideals, the Sheikh, is automatically assumed to be better than the rest. In short, none of the other Muslims in the film are actually people, they’re just perpetually agitated agitators. They show up, grumble about what’s going on, make threats (or make good on them), and disappear.

That said, many of the movie’s problems would be forgivable, or at least less noticeable, in a better movie. As currently constructed, we’re never really enthralled with what’s going on. Worse yet, we’re often bored by it. The actors do what they can, but are hamstrung by the material. By the end, we've no choice but to nit-pick all the issues that pop up. Salmon Fishing is occasionally cute, even funny when Kristin Scott Thomas is running her mouth. However, it falls apart because we turn to scrutiny in lieu of the romantic thrills it can’t give us.

Haywire

The Men Who Stare at Goats

Directed by Grant Heslov.

2009. Rated R, 94 minutes.
Cast:
George Clooney
Ewan McGregor
Jeff Bridges
Kevin Spacey
Stephen Lang
Robert Patrick
Waleed Zuaiter
Nick Offerman

Reporter Bob Wilton (McGregor) follows Lyn Cassady (Clooney) around the Middle East in hopes of writing an exposé about a secret military program to train soldiers with paranormal abilities. As the movie itself tells us, “more of this is true than you would believe.”

Clooney gives us another of his quirky, paranoid performances. Think O Brother, Where Art Thou? It’s one of the two types of roles he’s perfected, the ultra suave cynic being the other. He knows how to work us with excellent comic timing. Most of the movie’s best moments are his. The rest belong to Jeff Bridges who lets us know what The Dude from The Big Lebowski would be like as a soldier.

It wants to be a great oddball comedy. It’s definitely oddball but not consistently funny enough to keep us from noticing just how silly all this is, even though we’re not laughing. Ewan McGregor turns rather bland work. Part of the problem is he shares so much screentime with Clooney he never gets a chance to shine despite the movie being about his character. Finally, Kevin Spacey is underused as our villain if, for no other reason than it’s Kevin Spacey. Forgive me, I’m all about some Spacey.

It’s a premise with loads of potential that just doesn’t quite hit the mark. Unfortunately, even if it had it still may have been too strange for some.

MY SCORE: 5.5/10

Big Fish

The Ghost Writer

Directed by Roman Polanski.
2010. Rated PG-13, 128 minutes.
Cast:
Ewan McGregor
Pierce Brosnan
Olivia Williams
Kim Cattrall
Tom Wilkinson
Robert Pugh
Timothy Hutton
James Belushi

The Ghost (McGregor), as he’s often called, is hired to ghost write the autobiography of former British Prime Minister Adam Lang (Brosnan). However, there are peculiarities about the job. Not the least of which is the reason he is hired in the first place. The man originally assigned to the task has suddenly turned up dead. Next, the manuscript is said to have already been written, but no one outside of Lang’s most trusted people have actually seen it. Last, but certainly not least, accusations of war crimes are being hurled at Lang. Pretty soon, those accusations turn into a full-blown criminal investigation. Like us, The Ghost wonders just what has he gotten himself into and if he can get to the bottom of it.

This is the type of move where the threat of what could be next carries the day. To this end, it gives us much more in the way of tension than action. It’s better for it. Action is a short burst of excitement and is largely visual. Tension is much more visceral and lingers longer. It keeps us interested in these people.

Because of tension, we’re vested in the exploits of our hero. With every step he takes, we fear that it is a false one and that he will pay dearly for it. What also helps is that often, he isn’t sure whether or not the move he’s making is a good one, either. Nor is he some super-spy trained in the ways of espionage with tons of gadgets at his disposal. He’s just a guy who finds himself in the midst of something enormous. To get through it, he has some ideas, but generally takes the next step presented to him.

To pull this sort of thing off, a movie has to be well written. This one is. It keeps us going long enough to sustain our curiosity. Director Roman Polanski helps by being patient. He never rushes his story and barely embellishes what little action there is. This gives it a real-world feel that adds to our enjoyment. I will have to dock TGW a bit because my initial suspicions about where the trail will lead turn out to be true. Within the first 20 minutes I guessed the answer. Luckily, asking the questions is still lots of fun.

The banter between The Ghost and Adam offers some of the movies best moments. As the Prime Minister, Brosnan gives an outstanding performance. McGregor is also strong, as is Olivia Williams as Lang’s wife, Ruth, and the reliable Tom Wilkinson as Paul Emmett. Casting wise, my one gripe is with Kim Cattrall. She gives a weird portrayal as Lang’s top assistant. Seeing her try to speak with an English accent is odd in itself. However, combined with her almost robotic line deliveries it becomes downright ridiculous.

In sum, TGW manages to overcome its shortcomings to be a wonderfully taut thriller. It’s capped off by an amazing shot to end the film. It reminds me of the director’s own classic horror film, Rosemary’s Baby. In both movies, the finale is startling because of what you don’t see.

MY SCORE: 8.5/10