Weapons worthwhile despite questionable choices
Zach Cregger’s Weapons is
getting a great deal of press and it’s easy to see why. Not only did the film
bring in nearly $43 million in its first weekend of release, an impressive
number for a film of this sort, but its ending has left many viewers with a
great many questions regarding the children at its center. Why the resolution
would create a sense of mystery is beyond me as it all seems straightforward,
albeit, abrupt. Of greater concern are Cregger’s attempts to draw a metaphoric
connection between his story and the scourge of shootings in our nation ’s
schools, particularly the incident at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in
Parkland, Florida. While putting a spotlight on this issue is commendable, it
comes off as half-baked, Cregger’s attempts to make narrative correlations at
times awkward and nonsensical.
Cregger uses a
young girl to provide opening narration, insisting that what we are about to
see is a true story. This effectively establishes an unsettling tone that
becomes more disturbing as events unfold. The core incident concerns 17 third
graders who go missing, all having left their homes at 2:17 am on the same
night, none of them to return. Coincidentally, they were all members of Justine
Grandy’s (Julia Garner) class. Even more
curious, Alex Lilly (Cary Christopher) is the only one of her students who has
not disappeared.
Cregger structures
the film by looking at the aftermath of this event through the perspective of
six different characters. This approach is initially off-putting and prevents
the movie from generating a sense of momentum. But as things progress, the pace
picks up and proves to be a dynamic process.
In addition to Justine and Alex, we see things unfold through the
eyes of Archer (Josh Brolin), the father of one of the missing children, Paul
(Alden Ehrenreich), a cop Justine is having an affair with, James (Austin
Abrams), a homeless drug addict, and Marcus (Benedict Wong) a counselor at
Alex’s school.
To give more away
would be to rob viewers of the pleasure of discovering the film’s surprises on
their own. However, the presence
of Alex’s Aunt Gladys (an unrecognizable Amy Madigan) must be noted as she
comes to having a great and unexpected impact on all that takes place.
Far too many American cities have had to contend with school
shootings and Cregger’s intention is to delve into how a community reacts to
such a trauma. He should be praised for broaching this subject, though his
approach is sometimes ham-fisted, at others underdeveloped. The tendency of
looking for a scapegoat is front and center, Archer leading the charge in
throwing Justine under the bus, insisting she is the only link between the
missing kids and must know more than she’s saying. He goes so far as to paint the word “witch”
on her car. (It’s a witch hunt, get it?)
More curious is a dream Archer has in which he dreams of his
missing son and sees a large AK-47 looming in the sky, a digital clock flashing
“2:17” on its side. The inclusion of a gun not used in relation to the missing
17 makes little sense and only prompts unnecessary questions. Archer later uses
the word “weaponized” to describe what happened to the missing tykes, but that
ultimately holds little water once their fate is revealed.
It’s certainly possible I’m missing something. It’s also
possible that Cregger isn’t being as clear in making the connections he thinks
he is. Regardless, Weapons is a well-crafted, at times unnerving movie
that provides a great many surprises, laced with a sense of macabre humor
that’s becoming more prevalent in horror films. Discussions regarding its
intent and execution will continue, meaning Cregger has achieved what he set
out to do. He has us talking about a subject desperately in need of further
discussion, and for that, he should be commended. In theaters.
Sonja a bland, uninspired take on comic heroine
It becomes evident while watching M.J. Bassett’s Red
Sonja what a difference having an A-list director and budget makes. The
script by Tasha Huo isn’t half-bad as it recounts the origin story of Robert E.
Howard and Roy Thomas’ creation before sending her out to seek vengeance on the
barbarians that wiped out her tribe. The writer also weaves in a pro-ecology
subtext, making the titular character a sort of eco-warrior in opposition to a
self-serving emperor with designs on razing the landscape for personal gain.
It’s not spectacular, but serviceable for genre fare such as
this, and deserving of far better treatment than it gets here. But what dooms
the movie are the pedestrian sets, cheap special effects and bland direction.
Having been completed and sitting on the shelf for nearly three years, it’s
obvious the producers were far from pleased with the end result.
With her Marvel Comics debut in 1973, Red Sonja soon became
a mainstay in the Conan the Barbarian title. A fierce warrior with a wardrobe of
questionable practicality, the character first appeared on screen in 1985
with Brigette Nielsen in the title role, an underachieving production that has
since garnered cult status. Efforts to
bring the character back in a feature film have been ongoing for over 15 years,
talent attached the project only to leave, lawsuits also delaying it. If only
it had been stymied once more…
Matilda Lutz dons the chainmail bikini for Bassett’s
production, and it soon becomes apparent the enthusiastic actress is in over
her head. Required to engage in hand-to-hand combat as well as sword-fighting
derring-do, she simply doesn’t have the physicality or conviction to pull off
her big action scenes, and with a film of this nature, that’s a big drawback.
Yet, she soldiers on as Sonja is captured by the malevolent Draygan (Robert
Sheehan), who wants to conquer the world, and then forced to become a
gladiator, fighting others who’ve been taken for sport.
The sequences in the arena of battle are a chore. The CGI
effects are of the cheapest quality, while Bassett only shoots the most basic
coverage, leaving her editors with few choices to work with. The results are
rote, repetitious action scenes that fail to obscure Lutz’s awkwardness. And
don’t get me started on the poor cyclops they’re forced to battle. The
monocular brute must have escaped from a middle school video project.
Of course, Sonja’s too good of a warrior (HA!) to stay captured
long. She escapes once she finds there are survivors from her original clan
living in a forest Draygan wishes to raze in his effort to find the other half
of a magical book. Once she finds them, she realizes that she and the would-be
emperor are connected in a way she could have never predicted.
The score by Sonya Belousova and Giona Ostinelli, employed
to bring a charge to the lackluster action, is grating, its constant presence a
distraction. Had Huo’s script been lensed by a seasoned action director, cast
with veteran performers and been given a $100 million dollar budget devoted to
first-string special effects, Sonja would have been a solid start to a
would-be series of films. Unfortunately, Millennium Films simply didn’t have
those resources at their disposal, and it shows. What with superhero films on the wane and no
one clamoring for a Conan-like franchise, it’s hardly likely we’ll see
the She-Devil with a Sword grace screens anytime soon. Available through
Video-on-Demand.