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The Huntsman: Winter’s War: Mini-review

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Chris Hemsworth

Chris Hemsworth is a large part of the problem with The Huntsman: Winter’s War

C-Between the spring of 2012, when Snow White and the Huntsman became a modest theatrical hit, and this year’s arrival of its follow-up, The Huntsman: Winter’s War arrives, we have witnessed Frozen, Brave, and three Hobbit movies. All of these latter films were more successful, both critically and financially, than Snow White was, so it’s not surprising that the current film’s screenwriters have tried to shoehorn in as many plot elements as possible from the later movies. It’s also not surprising that the result is somewhat of a bloated mess.

The Huntsman: Winter’s War attempts to be both a prequel and sequel to Snow White. In the film’s first half hour, viewers learn that evil queen Ravenna (Charlize Theron) has a younger, nicer sister Freya (Emily Blunt). But a family tragedy makes Freya as cruel as Ravenna and gives the her ability to freeze people and other objects. After Snow White defeats Ravenna, Freya tries to get the power of Ravenna’s magic mirror for herself, and only Eric, the Huntsman (Chris Hemsworth), formerly one of Ravenna’s warriors, and another former warrior, Sara (Jessica Chastain), stand in her way.

Any movie fan seeing the current Huntsman will realize in a minute that Ravenna and Freya are far more sinister versions of Anna and Elsa in Frozen, red-headed Sara is a live action Merida from Brave, and that Eric’s quest for the mirror, accompanied by a band of dwarves, is a variant on the treasure hunt in the Hobbit films. Unfortunately, The Huntsman: Winter’s War is entirely bereft of any of the wit or magic of those other films. Instead, Huntsman relies on its title character, as played by the rather leaden Hemsworth, and struggles to fit all its disparate plot elements in a two-hour movie. At least, Theron has fun as an over-the-top villain (who is too seldom on screen), and she and Blunt look great in a variety of dazzling costumes. The movie’s visual effects are good, especially in the final action sequence, but the overall pace of the film is too slow and the mood too gloomy. Freya’s ice kingdom is the perfect setting for The Huntsman: Winter’s War; the movie is as frozen as the setting.
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Crimson Peak: Mini-review

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Jessica Chastain

Jessica Chastain is far creepier in Crimson Peak than here

BGuillermo del Toro‘s Crimson Peak is one of the best 100-minute Gothic horror films in recent memory, easily reminiscent of the 1940’s Alfred Hitchcock. Unfortunately, the movie lasts two full hours, and, in those last 20 minutes, director del Toro manages to undo a good bit of the mood he’s created and replace it with ineffective CGI ghosts and campy histrionics. 

Crimson Peak begins in the most unlikely of venues, turn-of-the-century Buffalo, NY, where aspiring writer Edith Cushing (Mia Wasikowska) falls for British visitor Thomas Sharpe (Tom Hiddleston). She marries Sharpe and returns with him and his sister Edith (Jessica Chastain) to his ancestral home, Crimson Peak, so named because it sits on top of red clay mines Sharpe is trying to modernize to save the family’s finances. But Edith soon discovers that the decaying mansion is home to lots of secrets, both natural and supernatural.

Crimson Peak is a ghostly horror story in which the ghosts are the least scary and most distracting part of the movie. Simply put, the mansion has tons of them, and when they show themselves, they resemble nothing more than leftover extras from The Walking Dead. Before that however, del Toro has crafted a masterful suspense tale with his three lead actors in an isolated wintry setting with plenty of sinister goings on. It’s not giving too much away to reveal that Thomas married Edith more for her family money than anything else, and that he and Lucille may not have her best interests at heart. Jessica Chastain delivers a deliciously wicked performance here as the sister who does not wish Edith well. And, by making Edith more of a feminist than the wallflower the Sharpes had originally envisioned, del Toro alters the dynamic of the eventual duel of wits among them considerably. The director has also created a perfect setting for the film, a magnificently rendered, gigantic decaying monstrosity of a mansion (the roof has holes in it so snow falls indoors). But then, in what’s apparently a woefully misguided attempt to appeal to more jaded, modern horror fans, del Toro dissipates all the erotic tension and suspense he’s created in favor of buckets of CGI ectoplasm and blood. Crimson Peak is too good of a cinematic experience to be completely ruined by its ridiculous ghostly manifestations, but these ghosts were definitely better left unseen.
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The Martian: Mini-review

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Matt Damon

Matt Damon is perfectly cast as The Martian

A-No, we haven’t actually sent astronauts to Mars already. However, Ridley Scott‘s The Martian is so skillfully made and feels so realistic that audiences leaving the theater can be forgiven for thinking that manned Martian landings have occurred but that they somehow missed hearing the details.

The Martian is the story of a NASA scientific mission to Mars that not only has occurred but has gone spectacularly wrong. A freak storm damages the landing craft and apparently causes the death of astronaut Mark Watney (Matt Damon), so the mission commander (Jessica Chastain) ends the mission weeks early and leaves with the remaining astronauts. Watney, however, is not dead, and when he successfully communicates that fact back to Earth, NASA director Teddy Sears (Jeff Daniels) eventually accedes to public pressure and tries to mount a rescue mission, even though it will take at least two years before a rescue craft can actually reach Mars.

Although The Martian obviously is fictional, it plays like a 21st century version of Apollo 13. In both movies, the emphasis is on the engineering, finding a solution to one problem after another, both on Earth and for Mark Watney on Mars. Mark conveniently makes a series of videos that provide the necessary exposition in an entertaining manner, explaining how he has grown vegetables and manufactured water, among other things. Meanwhile on Earth, every decision is reduced to a matter of time, how many extra days a particular action stands to gain or cost. Director Ridley Scott and screenwriter Drew Goddard constantly shift the focus back and forth between the amiable Watney (a perfect role for Matt Damon) and the brainstorming and decision making on Earth. To its credit, the film avoids making Daniels a stock corporate heavy, but instead, shrewdly pits him against the more humanitarian, cost-be-damned chief astronaut Mitch Henderson (Sean Bean). While Scott keeps the scenes on Earth deceptively low-key and often quite humorous, while remaining surprisingly realistic, the scenes on Mars seem equally real, thanks to some great photography by Dariusz Wolski. This is easily Scott’s best work since Black Hawk Down. Despite its vast scope and other world setting, The Martian avoids grand statements and issues. Instead, it’s an exceptional example of the craft of filmmaking, successfully engaging the audience in a straightforward, albeit highly complex rescue mission that results in one of the best films of the year. 
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A Most Violent Year: Mini-Review

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Jessica Chastain

Jessica Chastain is a lot tougher in A Most Violent Year than she looks here

B+Writer/director J.C. Chandor‘s last movie, All Is Lost, was a saga of one resourceful and courageous man, alone in a small boat, fighting for survival on the high seas under continually deteriorating conditions. His new movie, A Most Violent Year, is about another resourceful and courageous man, who’s also pretty much alone, who’s also fighting for survival in an even harsher environment under continually deteriorating conditions. The only difference is that, here, the environment is the heart of New York City in the year 1981.

Abel Morales (Oscar Isaac) isn’t a sailor on the high seas, but a businessman trying to steer his family heating oil business through some highly stormy conditions. He’s under pressure from all sides. His trucks keep getting robbed (probably by goons working for his crooked competitors), he’s under investigation by a district attorney (David Oyelowo) looking to score political points, and he’s strapped for cash at a time he desperately needs some to close the biggest deal of his career. Finally, his wife (Jessica Chastain) keeps urging him to fight back. Abel, however, is determined not to stoop to his enemies’ level but to do business honestly and ethically.

As the movie progresses, we gradually learn just what Abel’s version of honesty and ethics really is. In the movie’s best line, Abel tells his wife that he always wants to do “the most right thing.” But, as the audience comes to realize that “most right thing” seems to keep changing. A Most VIolent Year is a powerful, well acted, and at times nearly brilliant movie that manages to be a morality tale, a study in ethics, and a gripping suspense film.
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