“A Big Bold Beautiful Journey” - The magic of time and place.

I like weird. Weird music, weird books, and definitely weird movies. The Lobster, The Fountain, Labyrinth. The weirder, the better. Well, maybe not The Shape of Water weird. I have a line - fuzzy as it may be - and that movie crossed it. On the other hand, A Big Bold Beautiful Journey landed right in my sweet spot.

Life is all about doors. The doors you open and walk through and those you don’t. Journey asks its two main characters to open and walk through a bunch of doors and for us, the audience, to follow them. And the doors are so weird.

David (Colin Farrell) walks through a door into a very large room containing two rental cars. Two people sitting behind a desk urge David to come all the way in. The woman (Phoebe Waller-Bridge) peppers him with questions while the man (Kevin Kline) casually observes and agrees with her. In the end, she convinces David to rent the GPS to go with the 1994 Saturn he will be borrowing.

David makes his way to a friend’s wedding where he meets Sarah (Margot Robbie). The two of them have a very weird conversation, the wedding ends, and they separately leave the wedding. Shortly into the drive home, the sultry GPS voice asks David if he would like to go on a big, bold, beautiful journey. At first, David is confused that a GPS is having a conversation with him. But his life is quite dull, especially at that moment, so he answers yes. The GPS directs him to a fast-food rest-stop and tells him to order a cheeseburger. Question, dear reader - what would your answer to the GPS have been?

Sitting in a booth and eating his food, he spots Sarah two booths away. Weird. Sarah joins David, they chat for a while, then they walk to their respective, identical 1994 Saturns. More weird. When Sarah’s car won’t start, GPS tells David to offer Sarah a ride. He does. This is not weird, just polite. After some time and distance have passed, they reach a new destination. They walk into the woods and find a bright red door standing alone. With caution, they approach the door and David decides to walk through. At this moment, we are seeing the door from the side and we do not see David pass through the frame. Sarah joins him and the two find themselves in a lighthouse David once visited. Excellent and so very weird.

The rest of the film unfolds this way, Sarah and David walking through random doors into different moments of each other’s lives. And they aren’t just watching these moments play out and reminiscing about them. These are interactive moments where David and Sarah are their younger selves (or their parents) and can make different decisions. Where they can say things they wanted to say or not say things they did say.

But it’s not a Mr. Destiny thing where their present is altered if they make different decisions. These are all introspective interactions. They get to see how that moment plays out if they choose a different action, but when they walk back out the door, their lives are the same. These are learning moments for them and not just about themselves.

Don’t forget, this is also a romantic story. That initial wedding conversation is David and Sarah’s meet-cute. The door adventures are their dates. They even go through the cliched event that separates the two, though in their case it’s not an inane misunderstanding. All of this is clever character building while also developing their relationship with each other. And we even get to see them sing a little bit.

 

We watch a relationship blossom in real-time over a couple of days, while witnessing the kind of introspection, revelation, and vulnerability that comes over the course of a long-term partnership. A life partner sees you at your worst, relives your stories of pivotal formative moments, and holds your hand as you navigate through those latent emotions. This movie illustrates a wonderful allegory of how a lifelong partnership intertwines both past and future growth, and how the accidental elements of time and place can intersect to create magic.

In addition to being a big fan of weird, I’m also a big fan of Farrell and Robbie. Both have plenty of experience with weird, as anyone who has seen The Lobster or Birds of Prey can attest to. And both of them deliver very satisfying and convincing performances. Even if you aren’t a fan of the weirdness, you’ll be a fan of David and Sarah by the time they return their Saturns.

Rating: Don’t ask for any money back and stay weird.

“Babylon” - We’re going to need two cigarettes after this romp.

It’s a rare occurrence when a movie or series shows something that stops every random thought in my head, every synapse focusing like a laser on the screen. I become Neo in The Matrix when Morpheus leaps to a distant building. “Whoa” is the only correct response. It happened the first time I saw the control room in The Cabin in the Woods. It happened when A-Train liquefies Huey’s girlfriend in the first episode of The Boys. It happened when The Deep accidentally got his dolphin friend killed in The Boys. You know what - it happened a lot in The Boys. That show is nuts.

Babylon managed it three times in its first half hour.

Relax. I’m not going to tell you what they were. That would spoil the fun. What I will tell you is that Babylon is a remake of Singing in the Rain. I owe thanks to my wife for that connection because I have never seen Singing in the Rain. She read the synopsis for Babylon - the film depicts the rise and fall of multiple characters during Hollywood’s transition from silent films to talkies. She started describing some of the things that happen in Singing in the Rain and those same things definitely happen in Babylon, too…but in the craziest ways possible.

(Mild SPOILERS - I promise you I won’t reduce the shock value.)

Manny Torres (Diego Calva) is hired help for a massive party being thrown by legendary actor Jack Conrad (Brad Pitt). Manny is infatuated with movies and is hoping to get any kind of job involved with filmmaking. But first, he has to get an elephant up the hill to Jack’s house for the party. Yes, an elephant. Once there, we are treated to roughly thirty minutes of the most insane party you can imagine. Think The Great Gatsby meets The Wolf of Wall Street meets Eyes Wide Shut. Minutes in and Manny is as exhausted as the audience. Suddenly, a car smashes into a statue and out pops Nellie LaRoy (Margot Robbie). Nellie also wants to make it in Hollywood, but she has her sights set solely on acting. She joins the festivities, the party plays out, and we are left stunned and ready for that cigarette.

But the movie is ready to go again almost immediately. The next day, Jack enlists Manny as his assistant and suddenly Manny’s dream has come true as the two head off to the film sets where multiple films are being shot. Also enlisted is Nellie, though not for the same film as Jack. She is rushed onto the set and told to dance and look seductive. Nellie has been waiting for this moment her entire life and blows the director’s mind. Meanwhile, Manny is thrust into urgent situation after urgent situation (deal with extras, find a new camera). Like Nellie, he’s not about to blow this opportunity and comes through with shining colors. As with the wild and manic party, every shoot happening on scene is just as wild and manic, except without piles of naked people or elephants. By the time the day is over, everyone is spent. The actors, directors, extras, assistants, us. It’s exhilarating and so crazy that even Baz Luhrmann would be slack-jawed.

And there are still two hours left of this three-plus hour film.

Remember, this is basically a remake of Singing in the Rain. We still have to transition to talking movies, Jack, Manny, and Nellie’s character arcs have to actually arc, and people are literally going to sing the song “Singing in the Rain.” As the studio is investing in the transition, all of their big stars get first crack at it. Jack’s current wife Ruth (Katherine Waterson) is a Broadway star and runs lines with Jack while also giving him pointers. Nellie has a very nasally and Jersey-accented voice, coupled with her acting like a spoiled brat. Manny has risen to studio executive, pitching ideas to the studio owners, including featuring Nellie in several films, as well as creating a film featuring a jazz trumpet player named Sidney Palmer (Jovan Adepo). All of their arcs will play out over the last two hours, but with far less energy and ferocity as that first hour. Kind of like the inevitable hangover after any blow-out party. 

That’s not to say the film crashes in a heap on the bed. There are still a couple of fantastic scenes left. One features every take of Nellie’s first audio film, me laughing so hard I almost cried. Another features sensationalist journalist Elinor St. John (Jean Smart) lecturing Jack on the sobering reality of Hollywood. Yet another features underworld boss James McKay (Tobey Maguire) making one last gasp at keeping the debauched days of the first hour alive a little longer. I appreciate the effort James, but...WTF!!! is that a crocodile!? Man, I’m just sooooo tired; I don’t think I can go again.

Babylon is a good film overall, but it felt like it was at least thirty minutes, if not an hour, too long. Much of the film was done exceptionally well. From the costuming to the staging to the acting (Pitt, Robbie, Calva, and Smart were amazing) to the supporting actors to the set designs to the truly shocking moments that littered the film, it’s almost everything we hope for in movies. The problem is the first hour is so exhausting that we’re too tired to fully take in the final two hours. I get that it was intentional. The whole point was to make the audience not just see the transition of the three main characters and Hollywood in general, but to feel the transition as well. And it was done very well, perhaps too well. It’s possible that not even Damien Chazelle (writer/director) was expecting the first act to blow it out quite like that. So, he’ll just have to excuse us for falling asleep before he was done.

Rating: Don’t ask for any money back, but maybe a third cigarette.

 

“The Suicide Squad” - Let’s try plan B.

It’s pretty clear by now that the DC Extended Universe (DCEU) is essentially toast. Or, it’s a giant mess of barely connected movies that nobody has bothered to plan out, but really, it’s both. And that is how we got a sequel to Suicide Squad that is actually a remake, but, no just kidding, it’s actually a reboot. See what I mean? Just know that adding the word “the” to the title took six people working twelve hours a day for two weeks.

Perhaps the funniest question I got when friends asked me about The Suicide Squad was is it better than the first Suicide Squad? There are two ways to answer that question. One is, does a bear shit in the woods? The other, and the one I went with is, if I say yes, it doesn’t really tell you if it was any good; the first one was atrocious. Then, they nod and we start the conversation over with a better question. What did I think of The Suicide Squad?

(Mild SPOILERS ahead, or B-Spoilers if you will.)

The best way to describe The Suicide Squad is it is basically the movie that would have happened had Deadpool’s X-Force (from Deadpool 2) survived their skydive and had a full movie. Another way is do you remember Mystery Men? Yet a third way is that it is the most expensive B-movie ever made. What all three of those have in common is that the movie is a violent-gore fest that doesn’t take itself seriously and is finally in on its own joke.

For starters, The Suicide Squad is rated-R. Like Deadpool, this is the only way this kind of movie works. The protagonists are a bunch of violent criminals asked to go on a mission with an extremely high chance of death. Of course they are going to curse and violently kill their opponents. The first Suicide Squad was PG-13, which isn’t one of the top five reasons that movie sucked, but did help it suck more. The R-rating also allowed for a much wider range of jokes and allowed certain actors to really spread their wings. Did you ever wonder what it would look like if Idris Elba yelled at a teenage girl “fuck you” and that same girl yelled “fuck you” back at him through the clear plexiglass of a prison phone/visitor room? And, that girl is playing his daughter? Yeah, I laughed my ass off during that scene, mostly because it was Idris Elba.

Then, there is John Cena. Like Dwayne Johnson, Cena is really coming into his own as a comedic action star. Cena plays a character called Peacemaker, who “will kill as many people as it takes for peace.” Sound like any country you know? And you thought this movie wouldn’t have any political commentary. Anyway, Cena does a fantastic job delivering a character who the audience is simultaneously disgusted and entertained by. If he’s not standing in the middle of a jungle in tighty-whities, he’s noting that a starfish is a slang term for a butthole and wondering if that is relevant to their mission. And, naturally, he also delivers spectacularly in the fight/action scenes.

(Side note: Margot Robbie and Idris Elba were also their typical, exceptional selves. Incidentally, this made it hard not to notice that Joel Kinnaman is not good and Viola Davis has no idea what to do with her character due to how poorly her Amanda Waller is written.)

It was also great to see this movie poke its predecessor right in the eyes by immediately doing what the first movie should have - kill a bunch of C-level villains. Yeah, that means you Boomerang. The Suicide Squad starts off by introducing us to a planeload of villains that would fit right in with all of the B-villains listed off at the beginning of The Lego Batman Movie. Boomerang, Weasel, TDK, Mongal, Blackguard, Javelin, and Savant. Yes, those are really all their names and yes, they are the diversion for the real team when the movie starts. This scene perfectly captures the essence of the film with a bunch of grisly killings accompanied by hilarious jokes making light of those killings. You will laugh and cringe and breathe out a sigh of relief that this isn’t another dead-serious DC movie that is only trying to satisfy itself.

All of this wouldn’t have been possible without James Gunn, the director who came to prominence by delivering a ridiculously entertaining Guardians of the Galaxy. With The Suicide Squad, Gunn was able to let everything breathe. Actors, language, jokes, blood, action, and more blood. Lots of blood. Buckets and buckets of blood. Between all of the bloody deaths and exploding body parts, Gunn made up for the entire MCU’s bloodless body count. Combined with a gigantic alien starfish destroying a city, Gunn made a B-movie with A-movie money. And it was glorious. That’s not to say that the movie isn’t without some pretty glaring plot holes and head-scratching creative ideas (like when a bunch of flowers start showing up during a Harley Quinn action sequence despite there being no setup for said flowers), but, like Guardians of the Galaxy, the film is so over-the-top enjoyable that you can easily forgive those choices. Despite the film doing nothing to bring any kind of coherence to a greater DCEU (and it wasn’t trying to), it is easily the best DCEU to date. While that doesn’t say much compared to the rest of the DCEU, it finally is saying something.

Rating: Do not ask for any money back. Yeah, I’m surprised too.

“Birds of Prey” - Don’t oversell it.

Watching a DC Extended Universe (DCEU) movie is a bit like Charlie Brown trying to kick Lucy’s football. Every time you line up the kick, she promises that, this time, she won’t pull it away. By now, you have slipped four discs in your spine, bruised your tailbone, dislocated a hip, and eaten as much grass as a goat. But, you are going to try again, remembering that one time the DCEU was a little slow to yank the Wonder Woman ball away and you grazed it. You think “one of these days, she is going to keep her promise and that kick is going to feel sweet.” Well, either Lucy fell asleep on the job or that day is upon us because Birds of Prey finally fulfilled that promise.

(Side note: the subtitle of Birds of Prey is The Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn. To continue with my tortured Peanuts gang analogy, that subtitle was DCEU thinking really hard about seeing you land on your ass again. Also, mild SPOILERS ahead.)

If you haven’t figured it out by now, I am a bit of a perfectionist. When I point out problems with movies and people accuse me of nit-picking, my immediate response is “Hello…movie critic.” Picking apart movies is literally the job. What one might see as a good movie whose flaws should be ignored, I see as a solid first draft that needs to be polished in order to be great. Birds of Prey definitely needs some Pledge.

I will start off by saying that Birds of Prey is a very fun, very entertaining movie. Considering the DCEU’s track record, Birds of Prey seems like a priceless work of art following the tornado of toe jam that is the entire DCEU minus Wonder Woman. Incidentally, Wonder Woman was also no better than a solid first draft, but I digress. The film captures the insanity of Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie) through its structure, bouncing between past and present with Harley narrating everything for us. It is manic and discombobulated, but somehow manages not to cross the line into obnoxious. The fight scenes are well-choreographed and the movie incorporates some well-timed and funny comedic relief. The characters are fun and engaging and not once do we see Jared Leto’s Joker appear on screen. If this is the limit of your interest in deconstructing a movie, great. Thank you for reading and please thank the ushers on your way out.

If you are here for some fun, you've come to the right place.

But look past the surface for a moment and you will start to see that the flaws in this film are much more than just nits. Every character has writing issues. Black Canary (Jurnee Smollett-Bell) is missing a backstory and gets a superpower with barely any development (she shatters a glass while singing, which is not even remotely an indication that she has super-scream powers, not to mention no other glasses broke in the room). Huntress, a.k.a. the cross-bow killer (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), is a stone-cold assassin until the movie tries to make her an awkward nerd. Plus, she seems to be completely unaware of the mythical diamond belonging to her own family, instead, focused solely on revenge for her family’s murder. Roman Sionis, a.k.a. Black Mask (Ewan McGregor), only wears his mask at the very end of the film, for no reason other than to remind the viewer that he has an alias (which is completely pointless since everyone knows who Black Mask is and we never see him do anything as Black Mask until the climax). The hyena is never used other than as a sight gag. Detective Renee Montoya (Rosie Perez) is an aged, maybe-alcoholic that suddenly is able to kick ass with the best of them despite barely any development of said ass-kicking skills beyond a drunken fight with Harley. Harley can kick the hell out of dozens of toughs, but struggles with the drunk-detective (to be fair, this is typical of action movies).

Why?

In addition to the character issues, the production and screenplay have a couple of problems. While most of the fight scenes are executed well, the climactic fight scene is over-choreographed, forcing everyone to fight in a room full of over-the-top obstacles, not to mention the editing is disorienting, frequently jumping back and forth between multiple fights. Then, after dispatching the first round of bad guys, why do all of them just walk out of the building as a group when they know a bunch more bad guys, including Black Mask are waiting for them, leading to the least surprising shooting in the history of film? At one point, they stage a person-whipping-motorcycle sequence (based on roller derby) which causes the motorcycle to crash for no reason. Maybe the most egregious flaw is how the R-rating is mostly wasted, as there is almost no blood-spatter, zero nudity, but plenty of f-bombs. Birds of Prey clearly wants to be DC-Deadpool, but manages to come off as if it has never seen Deadpool.  Somehow, this movie manages to not do enough, while also doing way too much.

If only you could rip a few people to shreds. Oh yesh.

Conversely, it does a bunch of smaller things well. The movie is aware of itself with some fourth-wall breaks (again invoking Deadpool), it stops one scene to have a character ask when Harley had time to put on roller skates during a fight, another scene shows Huntress practicing her “do you know how I am?” line in the mirror, and most importantly, the majority of the action scenes treat the women as characters instead of women. Plus, the actors are clearly having fun, especially McGregor, who seems like he has been waiting to play a super villain since Jar Jar Binks crossed his path.

If you have made this far, you can see how a movie appears to me. Maybe I am too critical sometimes, but you try forgivingc flaws after watching and writing about seventy-five movies a year. Like I said, I am a bit of a perfectionist and I am not willing to settle for merely okay or good when a movie can clearly be improved upon. That does not mean I still don’t enjoy the hell out of movies because I really did enjoy the hell out of Birds of Prey. It just means I am not going to gush over movies that only look awesome because the other movies standing around them smell like my son’s feet after two hours of basketball.

Rating: Ask for a dollar back or at least a spit-shine.