“Don’t Worry Darling” - Is dinner ready yet?

Don’t Worry Darling is exactly the kind of movie that drove me to writing movie reviews. It’s a movie that is a decent watch the first time, but whose story immediately crumbles to dust upon even the slightest bit of scrutiny. It continues to astound and confound me that stories with plot holes you could fly the Death Star through make it through multiple drafts, are filmed, and get through post-production without at least one semi-conscious person making the obvious change that plugs the hole.

Case in point - Signs. Really, at no point during any stage of production did anyone notice that the entire movie revolves around aliens who are lethally allergic to water invading a planet where seventy-one percent of the surface is covered in water, where the atmosphere also contains plenty of water, and those aliens didn’t bother wearing clothes?

Clearly, I’m going to go into detail on Darling’s plot and its holes, but I’ll get to that a little later. Like I said, it’s a decent watch up until the last ten minutes of the film, when the story reveals its guts to look almost identical to those of Clark Griswold’s Christmas turkey.

Prior to the last ten minutes, the film builds a very intriguing mystery. Alice Chambers (Florence Pugh) and her husband Jack (Harry Styles) live in the perfect version of the idyllic version of 1950s suburban America. And not just the Leave it to Beaver version, but the version where a perfectly dressed and done-up wife opens the door for her husband when he gets home from work, hands him his favorite drink, leads him to the dining room where a freshly prepared, five-course meal sits on the table, then immediately fucks him on said table, meal and fine china be damned. Hehe - Leave it to Beaver, indeed.

Every morning, like every other wife in her cul-de-sac, Alice makes Jack breakfast, prepares his lunch, walks him to his car, kisses him goodbye, and waves, as he and the rest of the husbands drive off to work in a line of color-soaked, 50s-era cars. I agree, it just got weird.

Alice spends the day doing chores that every man of that era expected his wife to do. Clean the house, shop for groceries, gossip with the other ladies, take care of any kids (of which Alice and Jack have none), and repeat the whole dress-drink-dinner-sex thing with a permanent smile. Men are really stupid.

Except, something doesn’t seem quite right to Alice. Perhaps it’s the mundanity or inanity of such a life, but she begins to experience flashes of memories, including a certain song’s melody that she can’t stop humming. One day while riding the town trolley, she sees a plane crash and urges the driver to take her there. Confused and slightly afraid, he refuses to help, so Alice heads out of town on her own, into the California desert, to help any victims. Instead, she stumbles upon the headquarters of the Victory Corporation (the town is also called Victory), then passes out amid hallucinations of eyeballs and synchronized dancers in black and white. I agree, it just got weirder.

From here until the last ten minutes, Alice grows more and more suspicious and paranoid about the situation, including of the town’s founder and spiritual leader, Frank (Chris Pine). Eventually, she begs Jack to escape the town with her and, now, we’re at that ten-minutes-to-go mark.

By this time, the movie has done a good job of building suspense and the audience is definitely on Alice’s side. Everything we’ve seen has drawn us further and further into the mystery and we are all on the edges of our seats in anticipation of the reveal. We’ve also been treated to a stellar performance from Pugh (who absolutely carries this film on her back), exceptional cinematography, and music and sound that escalate the tension, building us toward the answers we are craving. Then, the reveal happens. Even the movie itself seems to know the reveal is bullshit, when after finally giving it to us, it quickly tries to distract us with Alice’s long overdue attempted escape, then cutting to credits before we have time to put our hands up to ask questions. About those questions...

(SPOILER ALERT - *Deep breath*)

First of all, no, Harry Styles was not good. There were moments of potential, but the vast majority of his performance proved that his reason for being in this film was purely based on putting teenage girls’ butts in seats. And it will probably work, at least enough to make the film break even, if not turn a profit. The advanced screening audience was easily ninety percent girls who are not old enough to vote, most of whom were still whooping at the screen when Styles’ named popped up in the end credits. Never mind that he came off like someone who had no idea they were actually in a movie, which only added to how bad he came off in the pre-taped cast interview we were shown prior to the film. When he was asked questions, the look on his face was a mix of confusion and a cry for help, mumbling his way through incoherent sentence fragments until a cast mate or the interviewer bailed him out. I have to believe he’s not allowed to speak at One Direction concerts, just sing.

Unfortunately, Chris Pine wasn’t much better, which was a huge letdown for me. Pine is unconvincing as Frank, lacking all of the charm and charisma that is required of sinister cult-type leaders conning everyone as the town leader and Victory company chairman. Some of this was clearly the fault of the screenplay refusing to use Frank for all but a couple of scenes, but also stems from Olivia Wilde’s direction, or lack thereof. Wilde seemed not to notice Pine delivering a wooden performance or that Frank is a woefully undeveloped character with no motivation. The movie would have been no different had Frank (and Frank’s wife, Shelley, for that matter) been cut out completely and only referred to by the townspeople. And that brings me to the big reveal.

The whole town is nothing but a computer simulation. To be specific, the simulation is specifically for men who want that fantasy version of life that has never, ever existed because the vast majority of women don’t spend every waking moment thinking about how to please men and their dicks. To fulfill the fantasy, Jack and the other men in Victory have drugged and kidnapped their significant others, forcing the women into the simulation without their consent or even their knowledge. Like I said, that in and of itself is not a bad reveal. The problem is just about everything we saw in the movie becomes nonsense in that context.

You see, in real life, Alice is a very busy surgeon and Jack is unemployed. Clearly, Jack’s penis can’t handle this situation. After sinking further and further into depression and diving deeper and deeper into the dark holes of the Internet, he stumbles upon Frank’s software and sermons, eventually buying into the bullshit as a legitimate solution and drugging and kidnapping his own wife.

The more you think about it, the more nonsensical it becomes. The women are in their own beds in their own homes, with little gadgets attached to their eye sockets holding their eyelids open while lasers continually scan their eyeballs. The men are using the gadgets as well, but are doing it willingly, so don’t require the drugs. If the women escaping or finding out the truth is such a huge risk, why isn’t there a secret facility where the women are held prisoner, with experts monitoring various feeds and administering the drugs, and smoking rooms for the men to use to congratulate each other’s testicles when they take a break from the simulation? This scenario is even hinted at when Alice is being electroshocked in attempt to erase and reset her mind, but that means they returned her to her apartment despite clearly being a security threat. And that’s just one question. Here are more of the questions that arise about stuff that defies logic after the reveal.

·         Why were there empty eggshells that one time, but not others, and why were they empty at all?

·         Where did the crashing airplane come from? It wasn’t imagined by Alice because the trolley driver saw it.

·         Was the trolley driver an actual guy in real life? What about the employees in the shopping mall? The band members at the party?

·         Why would all of the husbands need secret jobs when literally any job would make the women less suspicious?

·         Were the walls really smashing Alice? Does the software try to kill drugged users if they start to realize they are in a simulation, like some sort of failsafe? Wouldn’t that cause problems with the husbands?

·         Is Alice trying to subconsciously wake herself up by wrapping her head/face in plastic wrap or submerging her entire self in bathwater? Is that why the walls tried to smash Alice?

·         Why is it possible to die in the simulation?

·         What are the actual rules of this simulation?

·         If they don’t want the women to escape, why isn’t the road to the exit portal walled or fenced off or even guarded at all?

·         Why are all of the guys in red jumpsuits needed to catch people in a simulation?

·         Why does Shelley (Gemma Chan) suddenly kill Frank? Did she know what was going on the whole time or did she suddenly become aware of the simulation as well?

·         What is the significance of Alice’s visions and where are they coming from? They obviously aren’t real, but she also isn’t having visions from her real life.

·         In real life, Alice is an extremely busy surgeon. Are we to believe that everyone in the hospital believed Alice would just quit (assuming that’s what Jack told everyone) and cut off all contact with them? Unfortunately, the logistics of Jack’s abduction are never even hinted at, just that he did them.

There are so many more questions I have along those lines. The entire idea feels half-baked and, despite being an original screenplay, feels like it was adapted from a novel or an episode of The Twilight Zone, but by someone who didn’t bother to read or see the source material. It’s a movie that feels like at least thirty minutes of vitally important scenes were cut from the film. It’s a movie that could have been so much better had anyone just raised their hand and asked any obvious question about a clearly broken plot.

RATING: Ask for half of your money back, even if you only care that Styles is just a pretty face.

“Eternals” - Forgetting what works.

For years, Marvel and its Cinematic Universe (MCU) have been chugging along, producing one great movie after another, with the occasional Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2 to remind us that nobody is perfect. Simultaneously, Warner Brothers and its DC Extended Universe (DCEU) have been frantically trying to emulate the MCU, producing one great turd after another, with the occasional Wonder Woman to remind us that nobody is perfect. After watching Marvel’s latest film, Eternals, it seems as if the MCU wanted to try out DCEU’s approach just to prove it really is garbage.

(SPOILER ALERT - Get comfortable, there is a lot to discuss in this film and, like the film’s running time, we’re going to be here for a while.)

The biggest reason why the MCU has worked so well is it spends several movies developing individual characters and story arcs before moving to the big ensemble movies. You know, the opposite of what the DCEU did. You’d think that after twenty-five movies and three television series, the MCU would know better than to throw a dozen new characters into a new movie without previously developing any of them, but I guess they’re still hungover from the Endgame party.

It’s hard to believe that Eternals isn’t actually a DCEU film that stole the keys to Marvel producer Kevin Feige’s car. Eternals is a bloated, crowded, overly complicated, yet somehow-still-under-developed mess of a film. Eternals even has a really strong guy who can fly and shoot lasers from his eyes, a super-fast lady, a lady dressed like a goddess who fights really well, a guy who is good with gadgets, and a bunch of other characters with random and somewhat vague, if not redundant powers. They are one fish guy short of a full Justice League.

(Seriously. SPOILER ALERT. This is your last warning.)

The premise of the film is ten super beings called Eternals have been protecting humanity from deviants for 7,000 years. The Eternals look like humans, so can live among humans without drawing too much attention. They answer to a being known as a Celestial, named Arishem. If that sounds familiar it’s because Ego (from Guardians 2) is a Celestial. Except, instead of a Kurt Russell looking thing, Arishem is a giant robot looking thing, larger than a planet.

The leader of the Eternals, Ajak (Salma Hayek), occasionally speaks with Arishem via a glowy ball in her neck, giving Arishem status reports before voicing her concerns that the people of Earth are somehow different than the peoples of countless other worlds. “Stick with the mission,” responds Arishem. We later learn that the mission is really that the Eternals are only protecting humans to the point of humans reaching a critical population and intelligence mass, at which time a Celestial incubating in the center of the Earth (Tiamut) will be born, devour the entire human race, and destroy the Earth by bursting out of it. Once born, Tiamut will begin creating new stars, planets, and life forms, thus beginning a new circle of life. There’s just one small catch - only Ajak knows the true mission. The other nine believe they are protecting humanity until the end of time.

All of that sounds fairly straightforward, but then the movie starts talking. I don’t mean the characters, I mean the movie - there is opening narration. Why does every science fiction or fantasy movie have to start with opening narration, whether it be verbal or textual? Are audiences really so stupid and/or impatient that they can’t make it through the first five-to-ten minutes where the movie shows us what the narration just said? What’s that? Have I met current America that refuses to get a free, life-saving, taxpayer-funded shot in the arm, but will eat horse dewormer? I stand corrected.

One of the problems with the film is that much of it doesn’t make any sense. Partway through the film, we get a bunch of exposition explaining the truth of the universe and Arishem’s cosmic design. He seeded the universe with Celestials and populated their planets with intelligent creatures. He then created the Deviants to protect the intelligent creatures by hunting predators on the planet that might kill the intelligent creatures. Unfortunately, the Deviants evolved to also hunt the intelligent creatures. Arishem refers to this as a flaw in the Deviants’ creation and that he lost control of the Deviants. So, he created Eternals, synthetic beings incapable of evolving, to hunt down the Deviants. Once a Celestial is born, the Eternals return to Arishem, their memories are erased, and they are sent to the next planet to do it all again. Then, the Eternals got out of control, so he created tigers to kill the Eternals. Then, he created elephants to squash the tigers. Whoops, wrong story.

Let’s recap that - Arishem created humans, but also created creatures that might kill those humans. So he created new creatures whose sole purpose is to hunt the hunters, but it didn’t occur to him that the new hunters might also hunt the humans. So, he created new, new hunters to hunt the hunters of the hunters, but told the new, new hunters, they could only protect the humans from the new hunters and not do anything else, including hunt the original hunters since they aren’t the new hunters. And they took orders from this clown?

Before I saw this film, I thought the Deviants were going to be actual people. Like, a very specific few super-beings or something. Hela, for example. Or someone we hadn’t seen yet. It was an intriguing concept, mostly because it was teased in the film when Sersi (Gemma Chan) is asked by her boyfriend Dane (Kit Harrington) why the Eternals didn’t help stop Thanos. “We were forbidden from interfering in human affairs unless Deviants were involved,” she replied.

I was extremely disappointed to find out they were just ravenous monsters. I was even more disappointed when the Deviants turned out to be a red herring. One Deviant in particular is noted to have the power to heal itself, something Deviants had not been known to do. Later in the film, it kills Gilgamesh (Don Lee), the strong Eternal, absorbing his power and gaining the power of speech. No, seriously, the thing can suddenly talk and morphs into a more human-like creature. Does this figure into the plot at all? Nope. Thena (Angelina Jolie) has a fight scene in the climax with it and that’s it. Speaking of Jolie...

Given the parameters of the mission, we really have to question why there are ten of them and why some of them have the powers they have. Ikaris (Richard Madden) is strong, fast, can fly, and shoots lasers out of his eyes. Kingo (Kumail Nanjiani) can shoot energy balls out of his hands. Sprite (Lia McHugh) can project illusions. Phastos (Brian Tyree Henry) invents stuff. Gilgamesh is strong. Thena can summon stabby weapons and shields and is a good fighter. Makkari (Lauren Ridloff) runs super fast. Ajak can heal people. Druig (Barry Keoghan) can mind control humans. Sersi can change stuff into other stuff, like change rocks into water. It really is a grab bag of powers, some of which don’t seem to be useful against…checking notes…ravenous monsters.

Why didn’t Arishem just make ten Ikarises? Or one hundred, for that matter? And, if they aren’t supposed to interfere in human affairs, why does he give several of them powers that seem specifically for interfering in human affairs? And, since he doesn’t seem to care what they do, why not let them interfere in human affairs to speed up the process, which they are doing anyway? And, why did he make Sprite a child? Seriously, they took orders from this clown.

Beyond the main conflict and storyline, there are a whole pile of sub-plots that only serve to muddy this already muddy mess. Ikaris and Sersi have a romantic relationship, including a sex scene on a beach. Prior to this scene, their relationship is developed by the two of them noting that Earth is beautiful and helping some ancient peoples do chores, then Ikaris disappears on her for 500 years until showing up again in present times. Druig and Makkari appear to also have a relationship, but who has time for that? Thena is freaking out and trying to kill the others, so Gilgamesh cares for her in the middle of a desert for centuries. Phastos is upset that he can’t give humans more inventions, so he settles down with a family in the suburbs. Kingo becomes a Bollywood star because the film needs some comedic relief. Sprite is a moody adolescent because the film needs some juvenile angst. Ajak is keeping the true mission a secret and lies to them all that the Deviants have been defeated, but they can’t go home yet. Druig is upset that they can’t intervene to stop humans from killing each other, so he intervenes during a massacre of Incans by conquistadors. And during all of this, and I can’t stress this next point enough - you will not give even the tiniest shit about any of it or any of them.

Scanning through a bunch of other reviews, every critic is going out of their way to fault the studio and not director/writer Chloe Zhao because Zhao won an Oscar last year for directing Nomadland. I’m just as guilty of accusing studios of meddling as any other critic, but it is malpractice not to place some of this mess on Zhao’s shoulders. Just as one example, a bit of research revealed that Zhao said she patterned Ikaris after Zack Snyder’s Superman. On purpose. If the studio really was meddling that much, wouldn’t at least one suit have threatened to fire her for taking inspiration from the dumpster fire that is the DCEU?

And that fits with the overall feel of Eternals. An overly serious movie featuring lackluster performances, with comic relief that misses far more than it lands, starring far too many poorly developed heroes in a complicated mess of a story, fighting a villain even less developed than themselves and who is ultimately discarded for a different quasi-villain, surrounded by tons of special effects and questionable music choices. It’s a film that asks us to care about a bunch of characters without actually developing those characters. It’s a film that tries to be another Avengers without having done the necessary work beforehand. I know a lot of people are trying to soften the criticism with platitudes like “at least they tried something different,” but that’s not a good thing when the something different is basically everything wrong with the DCEU. It’s been twenty-five movies and three television series - they should know better.

Rating: Ask for all but a dollar back. Marvel can afford it.

“Raya and the Last Dragon” - Has it been so long?

I am so happy to watch a new movie that is not Oscar bait (though I’m still happy about those) and not called Wonder Woman 1984. I’m also a sucker for fantastical quest movies, so all this movie had to do was not be, well, Wonder Woman 1984. Low bar, I know. It did get a little dicey at times like, early in the film when exploding farts became a thing, or later when a baby threw his own diaper at someone’s face. But, I let those go because the dragon was endearing and the other characters were the familiar ragtag bunch of misfits that always make quest movies fun. Mostly, it’s just been so long since a fun blockbuster-type movie came out, especially one that wasn’t a soul-crushing disappointment, that farts and diapers were almost welcome. I know another movie that could have used some of that.

And now, as always, the thoughts of the movie’s target audience, my eight-year old son.

What was the last new movie you saw?

The last new movie I saw was *thinking* I don’t even remember. Oh wait…was it…Godmothered?

I think you are right. How happy are you to see a new movie?

Pretty happy.

The new movie is Raya and the Last Dragon. What was you first thought after watching it?

I thought about what the genres were.

What are the genres?

Adventure. Fantasy. And did I say comedy? It was actually pretty funny.

Let’s start with the comedy. What was funny about it?

There was one joke when Raya found Sisu at the end of the river and she made this funny joke. I don’t remember what it was, but it made sense.

Who is Sisu?

She’s like this dragon. The last dragon that ever lived. She can swim fast and we she holds the dragon gems she gets another power from her siblings. One power was she could turn into a human.

Does she spend more time as a dragon or a human?

A human.

Do you think that was good or should she have stayed a dragon the whole time?

It was good because she could hide as a human so people wouldn’t capture her. And Kumandra needs dragons.

What is Kumandra?

Kumandra is where all of the people were one big city, but now they’re all enemies.

Why does Kumandra need dragons?

Because dragons brought them water and stuff and plants and good food.

What is the adventure part of the movie?

They have to try to make Kumandra back to Kumandra. So they have to get all the enemies back to Kumandra.

Who is they?

Raya and her friends.

Tell me about Raya and her friends.

There’s this big dude. I don’t remember what his name was, but he is huge and buff. And there is this little kid that works at a hibachi restaurant on a boat in the middle of the river. There’s Sisu, obviously. Raya (I said Raya, right?). And the baby ninja who is in charge of the monkeys.

Sounds like a really funny group.

Told you - the movie is funny.

How are Raya and her friends going to bring back Kumandra?

They have to get back, well, in the beginning of the movie, the dragon gem broke. To bring Kumandra back, they have to find the pieces and connect the gem back into a ball again.

What happened when the gem broke?

There are these purple monster thingies that if they touch people, the people turn to stone. The purple monster thingies are like ten feet tall and ten feet wide and are walking, slimy, jello things.

So, they have to put the gem back together before the purple monsters turn everyone to stone?

Yes.

If all they have to do is put the dragon gem back together, why do they need a dragon? Why do they need Sisu?

I said it, but I just lost it.

It’s okay. Who are all the enemies in the movie?

Fang. Spine. Tail. I can’t remember the other one. But everything is around a big river shaped like a dragon, so all the places are named after body parts.

Who broke the dragon gem?

The princess of Fang.

Is she also a main enemy?

Yes. Everyone is kind of enemies, but they have to friend each other like in a video game.

Is that how they make Kumandra?

Yes. They make friends, build a better team, and do jobs.

Who is your favorite character in the movie?

The ninja baby and the monkeys. Because it’s a baby and why not?

What was your favorite part of the movie?

Hmmm. That was a good question. It is *thinking* *rolling around on the couch* when they find Sisu and when she makes a ton of good jokes that adults and kids understand. Therefore, it’s a amazing. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Were there any parts of the movie you didn’t like?

Not really.

Was any part of the movie too scary for kids?

No. It’s an animation movie.

Animation can still be scary. Do you think young kids might be scared by ten-foot tall, purple jello monsters that turn people into stone?

Yeah, no. Unless their parents dress up as one and chase their kids.

That would be scary. Overall, what did you think of the movie?

It was pretty good. Pretty funny. Pretty adventure-y. Pretty fantasy-y.

Rating: If the movie were twenty bucks, I would ask for no money back because a lot of kids would really like it and it’s meant for kids to watch.