Knives Out

Sometimes you come across a movie that just hits the sweet spot—something crisp and fun and nicely satisfying—and you walk out of the theater with a slight smile on your face thinking… that was swell. Knives Out is such a film. And go figure, delivered to us this holiday season in a hard-to-find-nowadays wrapping—the classic whodunit. The genre may be infrequently used lately but you know the drill—someone has been murdered (usually someone important and/or rich), lots of likely suspects in close quarters, and a sleuth with nigh super human deductive powers. Knives Out lacks none of these. But the film is more than classic formula, it has that special it. Acclaimed writer and director Rian Johnson (Brick, Looper, Star Wars: The Last Jedi) has injected the schtick with an intelligent whimsy and stylized the glorious cast of suspects and their Clue-board setting into a feast for eyes, mind, and funny bone. 

Successful crime novelist Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer) has died, violently, in his ornate mansion, the night of his birthday party attended by all of his loving family members. Ruled a suicide initially, now enter Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig), private investigator of “great renown” into the investigation. His presence and purpose in the investigation is a mystery in and of itself, but his skill is not, and he immediately finds reason to suspect foul play and begins to untangle the “twisted web” laid out before him. He is surrounded by the usual numerous suspect motivations: greed, jealousy, desperation, fear. But Blanc has a special gift for seeing the trajectory of the mystery and, thus, the ability to follow it to its inevitable landing place… the truth. The ensemble cast is perfectly over-stuffed and wonderful, especially Michael Shannon (as usual) playing the son-in-law heading Thrombey’s publication business and in fear of losing his place in the family fortune, and Christ Evans as the reckless black-sheep grandchild who Harlan sees so much of his young self in. But Craig steals most scenes with Blanc’s “Fog-Horn-Leg-Horn” drawl and the projection of an all-knowing yet little-revealing understanding of the complex pieces of the game that is afoot. The case is, indeed, following an arc, and you know that Blanc see’s it which just builds our anticipation to see it too.

Knives Out is simply smart, off-balance fun and sharp as a tack. A throwback yes, you could say, and yet completely fresh. The film is, in a word, delightful and we all require a little delight in our lives; go see this one. 8.5 out of 10.

Spider-Verse’s Spider Man is Amazing!

Even the opening titles were striking… different… and it just kept being striking and different all the way through.

Fresh is not a complete enough description for this splendid adventure of a movie—you need more adjectives to smash together like the smashing together of multiple universes that contain the odd array of potential Spider men, women, and pigs populating this Bizzaro-style (to borrow a term from the DC boys) Spider-Man animated romp. Let’s not waste time comparing Spider-Verse to any of the previous Spider-Man efforts—it’s made of completely different DNA. Imagine the best of the super-hero comic-book and graphic-novel style and artistry brought to life (animation life) in the brightest of fashions. Directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller (The Lego Movie and 21 Jump Street) incorporate, what I believe, is a unique mashup of animation styles into a plot vehicle that allows for maximum whimsy, and just about everything they do within that cool and shiny container works.

Let’s go through it one last time… as they’ll all say: A kid, an interesting but a common-enough kid, gets bitten by a radio-active spider and begins to display super, spidey-like powers—but, his name is not Peter Parker. He’s Miles Morales, just a boy trying to make sense of a new school with a new vibe. The first… the real… the first, real, Spider-Man in Miles’ universe, Peter Parker, is nearby trying to stop super-villain Kingpin from creating a black hole and multi-universe portal beneath Brooklyn, an act that Mr. Parker surmises could spell the end of the world as we know it—common super hero stuff. But when Peter (the first Spidey) gets caught in the black-hole-making beam, multiple universes begin to intersect, sucking their own, customized spideys along and through the hole toward Miles and his new-found powers. From there, Lord, Miller and the rest of the Spider-Verse creators take maximum advantage of the multi-verse palette to create this visually dense and super-crafty new thing. 

Spider-Verse is frenetic with machine-gun-fire witty zingers constantly coming at you—traits common with Lord’s other animated success, The Lego Movie. With Spider-Verse, however, the creative team has struck on something cleverer than the plastic Batman. Although the imagery and story come fast and furious, I never felt pummeled by them—the film displays more slickness and savvy than bombast. The intelligent use of Marvel graphic-novel specials like multi-panel illustration, disproportioned character depiction, and text bubbles (even though you’re hearing the characters) create an effect that is stand-alone entertaining. The cast is outstanding with specific nods to Brian Tyree Henry as Miles father and Jake Johnson (New Girl) as Peter B. Parker, a less-healthy version of the Peter we’re familiar with—but all are good. Spider-Verse’s end game is a bit busy but there’s, overall, great super-hero story telling going on. I suppose, since universes are colliding there at the end, literally, a little confusion is to be expected. When the credits rolled and all was calmer, I felt extremely satisfied, brightened by the thought that I had just seen something completely different… different and really good, and that made me happy. I’d see this film again – I may need to see this film again to catch all of the good stuff that must have passed by me in the blast – 9 out of 10.

If you are at all a fan of the Rocky Franchise, you’re going to love Creed II

The “Sweet Science” (that’s boxing for you non-pugilistic types) is deceivingly complex – full of stratagem, complicated by opposing styles, and subjective in its measure and scoring. But, at its core, and as viewed by most casual spectators, its boils down to the landing of four basic punches – the jab, the cross, the hook, and the uppercut. These may be thrown in different combinations, with different speeds and from various angles, but they make up what the boxer does over and over again until it is done. When he or she is not defending against those four things, he or she is throwing those four things. The Rocky franchise has fought this way for three decades now, pivoting occasionally, rolling out left or right at times, but always throwing the same punches - hoping that enough land. Creed II is no exception – it is no less predictable than any other Rocky film, no more mysterious in its end game. And yet, it excels; like the champion fighter, it lands and lands often – to the body to the head to the body – until you can’t resist and you’re just rolling with the punches.

It’s hard to say why one Rocky movie (and we count the two Creed movies in this genealogy) is better than the other. Like a good boxing match, I suppose it depends on the combination of the ingredients in the ring – the skill and the heart and the story of the participants – Creed II succeeds in all areas. For the latter, the film reaches back into Rocky lore (Rocky IV) to the death of Apollo Creed in the ring at the hands of the evil Russian boxer Ivan Drago (Dolph Lundgren). Now, Apollo’s son, Adonis Creed (Michael B. Jordan), who came out of obscurity to challenge for a title under Rocky’s tutelage in the first Creed film, is a world champion experiencing all of the trappings of boxing greatness. On the other side of the world, Ivan Dragos (played again by Dolph Lundgren), having been forgotten by his country since losing to Balboa all those years ago, has been training his only son Vitor (Florian Munteanu) to one day redeem them in the ring. With Adonis Creed now a world champion and with his old nemesis Balboa his trainer, Drago knows that it is time to strike a deal for the fight of the century – a Creed/Drago repeat.

This soap-opera plot seemed ripe to produce some jump-the-shark story telling. I entered the film worried that I might see all the good that was done in Creed I turned to corn ball. My worries were unfounded. I’ll grant that the writing (Stallone returns as part of the team) and direction (new guy Steven Caple Jr. directs) in Creed II are not as deft as its predecessor’s, particularly in the mixing of the tough and the tender – a bright attribute of Creed I. But, Creed II, it turns out, doesn’t really need gracefulness. Oh, the film has its poignant pieces, but it’s the chemistry of its characters, the balance of new and nostalgic, and the adrenalin rush of its battles that intoxicate. Jordan and Stallone are just superb together in their struggle up the mountain. And training and fighting montages – a Rocky-film staple, moving between Adonis’ and Viktor’s camps - are as impressive as any from the parent films. Heck, there’s even some defense displayed by the young Creed – a fight component never shown by Balboa (Rocky never slipped a punch in his career). Creed II pushes all the right buttons and by the time the original Rocky theme music makes its appearance during that final battle, you are ready, yourself, to step into that ring, double roll as you pass through the ropes, pound your gloves together and rumble. Creed II gets an 8 out of 10.