BATMAN AND SUPERMAN: BATTLE OF THE SUPER SONS

Batman and Superman: Battle of the Super Sons has absolutely no business being this damn good. Aided in part by the sure-handed storytelling of Justice League Dark co-director Matt Peters and Justice Society: World War II writer Jeremy Adams, DC’s latest animated effort benefits from focused storytelling, inspired voice performances, and a welcome willingness to sideline Batman and Superman. The result is one of DC’s most straightforward and endearing animated efforts to date.

Battle of the Super Sons coasts on the undeniable chemistry between Jack Dylan Grazer and Jack Griffo. Each of them brings a playful power that’s essential to their characters’ appeal. Grazer, moving from playing Billy Batson’s best friend in Shazam! to running the show as Jonathan Kent, proves a capable lead. He’s charming, quippy, and likeable, a cheery foil for the brooding Damian Wayne. Sure, Damian is more curmudgeon than child, but Griffo smartly imbues him with longing. Longing for affection. Longing for attention. Longing for friendship. You get it. There are layers to Damian, and Griffo communicates all of them beautifully.

Battle of the Super Sons packs its lean runtime – a breezy 79 minutes – with storytelling decisions that could have worked against a less assured creative team. Opening on the destruction of Krypton has become too played out to be compelling… in most cases. Adams plays the bones of this long-dead horse like a xylophone, feigning a “been there, done that” approach before using the tragedy to set up something else entirely.

Adams refuses to introduce anything he won’t bring back later. Even Clark’s excuses for missing his son’s baseball games serve a purpose… as do the games themselves. Fun, funny, and conscious of its constraints, the script is a great example of ruthlessly efficient writing. It’s not groundbreaking. It won’t redefine anything. But it’s also not trying to. It’s a sweet story that establishes a fan-favourite friendship, showcases some cool fights among Justice League members, and then wraps things up neatly and without fanfare.

From a technical standpoint, Super Sons mostly nails it. It’s DC’s first foray into CG animation so there are kinks here and there. Somewhat incongruously, though, the clunkiness is only noticeable in more mundane moments. Jonathan dashing through farmland doesn’t look quite right, nor do most of the interactions in the Kents’ kitchen. When given time to linger, the visual flaws are obvious. But when things ramp up, the movie is stunning.

Thanks to Battle of the Super Sons, the Jonathan Kent/Damian Wayne dynamic has never been snarkier or more fun. More, please!

BATMAN AND SUPERMAN: BATTLE OF THE SUPER-SONS hits DVD/Blu-ray on October 17th

 

WEREWOLF BY NIGHT

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The Marvel Cinematic Universe (and its arguably over-prolific Disney+ television equivalent) takes a welcome swerve away from the superhero genre in this one-off Halloween ‘Special Presentation’ that marks its first tentative if a full-blooded foray into the worlds of the supernatural explored in the comics following the relaxation of the rules of the Comics Code Authority in the early 1970s. Directed with gusto by Michael Giacchino (best known for his work as a film score composer whose memorable tunes include the still spine-tingling ‘Marvel fanfare’) and starring Gael Garcia Bernal and Laura Donnelly, Werewolf By Night takes its inspiration not from the popular 1970s comic (much of its run written, amusingly, by Marv Wolfman) but from the classic Universal horror movies of the 1930s with the odd nod towards the glory days of Hammer in the 1960s.

Presented in eerie, shadowy black-and-white, Werewolf By Night runs to about fifty minutes and whilst we would, of course, have loved even more, the nippy runtime allows for a snappy and succinct storyline that doesn’t pause for breath as it establishes its tone and characters and, hopefully, paves the way for something more substantial in the future.  A motley group of monster hunters – including Bernal’s Jack Russell – are summoned to Bloodstone Manor by Verussa Bloodstone (Harriet Sansom Harris) following the death of her husband Ulysses. Here they will participate in a hunt to establish the new bearer of the monster-controlling Bloodstone gem (its glowing light providing the only dash of colour during most of the episode) and eventually Jack finds himself working alongside Elsa Bloodstone (Donnelly), the estranged daughter of Ulysses and no great fan of the family’s monster-hunting traditions. The gem has been embedded into the body of an old friend of Jack’s – and another familiar beastie from the Marvel horror canon – but when they’re finally captured by Verussa, Jack is forced to transform into his baser, beastlier nature… with refreshingly blood-letting consequences.

Werewolf By Night is a delightful divergence, a welcome return to dramatic values after some of the more recent flippant and lighter Marvel fare. This isn’t necessarily aimed at the broad Marvel audience who might find its lack of traditional colourful superhero antics off-putting but fans more familiar with Marvel’s more gruesome roll call will revel in the gritty violence (surprisingly gory in places but not too over-the-top) and moody atmosphere. Giacchino uses occasional flecks and watermarks on the screen to evoke the desired effect of ‘old school’ cinematic horror coupled with his own powerfully histrionic score and a restricted setting full of creepy corridors and catacombs alongside his small cast of intriguing weirdos. A Halloween treat delivered early, Werewolf By Night is great goosebump fun, Marvel on more solid ground after a shaky few months, and we can only hope that the bleed into colour in the final sequence that establishes Jack and his monstrous friend as a ‘team’ will lead to more adventures into the darker side of the mighty world of Marvel.

Werewolf By Night is streaming now on Disney+

STALKER

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What if you were stuck in a lift with someone who had been watching you for a while and may have sinister motives? What if that situation was planned from the beginning? It would be terrifying no doubt. Steve Johnson (Convergence), directing from a script by Chris Watt, puts actor Rose (Outlander’s Sophie Skelton) and B-roll cameraman Daniel (Stuart Brennan) in that situation.

Despite seeming strangers, when trapped in a service elevator in a three-star hotel during a violent storm, Rose and Daniel are working on the same film. Rose is the lead and shy and creepy Daniel has footage of a fight Rose had with the director (a cameo from wrestling legend Bret Hart). With no one around to get them out, they start to talk, leading to more revelations.

Utilising mainly one location (although the opening shots of the rain-soaked surrounds are exquisitely shot), namely a rather spacious service lift, is clearly a sign of a film having a low budget. However, Johnson’s film has a secret weapon vital for any film to succeed: great actors. Skelton and Brennan are believable in their roles. Brennan provides the right amount of anxiety and eeriness to Daniel and it’s easy to feel Rose’s discomfort.

Johnson ramps the tension, creating a claustrophobic atmosphere that builds to a dramatic conclusion. Try to avoid the trailer if you don’t want any surprises spoiled, however.

Kaleidoscope Home Entertainment presents Stalker on DVD and Digital from 10th October.

Read our interview with the star, director, and writer here. 

BLONDE

This quasi-fictional adaptation of Joyce Carol Oates’s book is not so much a biopic but more a Lynchian horror. Here, a tortured Marilyn Monroe (Ana de Armas giving it her all) may as well be Laura Palmer in Twin Peaks or Betty Elms in Mulholland Drive.

At nearly three hours long, the film shows the rise and fall of Monroe in an avalanche of traumatic experiences documenting some of her most famous films and relationships. Surviving an unstable mother, an absent father, selfish friends, and an industry and society unwilling to look beyond her blonde hair or sex appeal, Monroe is portrayed as a woman torn between the Norma-Jeane who wants to settle down and start a family and the invented Marilyn who is destined for stardom at any price.

At times the film can be a bit over the top as the melodrama is unflinchingly rammed down our throats, and many scenes need to be viewed with a pinch of salt as they simply may never have happened. However, Blonde does give a refreshing, darker take on Monroe’s Hollywood dream as well as boldly showing the nastier side of American ‘heroes’ such as Joe DiMaggio and JFK. While touched upon, we do not get a full exploration of Monroe’s more questionable decisions and therefore we can only view her as the consistent victim of her own story.

BLONDE is out now, exclusive to Netflix

 

FUNNY PAGES

This wonderfully bizarre coming-of-age black comedy gives us some of the most unique oddball characters seen in cinema for some time. Written and directed by Owen Kline (son of Kevin and Phoebe Cates if that kind of thing interests you), Funny Pages follows teenage cartoonist Robert (Daniel Zolghadri) as he naively tries to make it as a comic book artist.

In doing so, Robert reluctantly navigates through – and wilfully rejects – a middle-class suburban existence, high school and friendship with the admiring Miles (Miles Emanuel). A tragic accident involving his teacher and mentor Mr. Katano (Stephen Adly Guirgis) kickstarts this sequence of events, leading him to work for legal aid Cheryl (Marcia DeBonis) and sharing an overheated basement with the eccentric Barry (Michael Townsend Wright) and Steven (Cleveland Thomas Jr). Through work he meets comic book colourist Wallace (superbly played by Matthew Maher), who despite obvious anger management and emotional problems is idolised by Robert. In a movie full of lovable weirdos, Wallace takes the crown. The intertwining relationships between these characters produce plenty of crude humour as we’re treated to a real-life version of the works of Robert Crumb, Daniel Clowes, Chester Brown, Joe Matt, or Harvey Pekar.

Despite only being produced by them, the chaotic nature of the film hints at the Safdie Brothers’ involvement, although this is a solid directorial debut from Kline. Yet another leftfield hit from A24 and quite possibly one of the movies of the year.

SOMETHING IN THE WOODS

SOMETHING IN THE WOODS

Something in the Woods’ opening instils in you interest and intrigue for what might come. Title cards inform us that 600,000 people go missing in the United States each year, and that 89-92% are recovered, albeit some are no longer alive. For those poor souls that remain lost no-one is tracking the how’s or why’s of their disappearance. An intriguing premise, but one that writer Deanna Gomez and director Alexander T. Hwang do their best to undermine with a framing story built around a revenge-fuelled woman (Vienna Hayden) kidnapping the reporter (Nicole Cinaglia) who she believes is responsible for her family’s downfall and the loss of her inheritance. And she takes her out into the woods. Where there happens to be a monster.

From beginnings reminiscent of an X-Files episode Something in the Woods spends a lot of time and effort on a revenge story which is both leaden and tiresome. Odd tonal shifts and erratic plotting lead to a confused narrative that only comes to life when the creature emerges from the undergrowth. While the CGI may be a little unconvincing at times the design at least is interesting – think a toothier version of Gollum – and there are moments of genuine jeopardy. But then we’re returned to the dull dynamic between the two women and any momentum is squandered.

While this is ambitious filmmaking on limited resources the poor acting and uninspiring direction largely detract from any positives. Something in the Woods is a 30-minute short film extended to – barely – feature length and there is nowhere near enough interest in the character’s plight to carry the story.

SMILE

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CERT: 18 / PLATFORMS: CINEMA / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

In an already fantastic year for big screen horror on scales and budgets grander (The Black Phone, Nope) and smaller (Dashcam, X) alike, we have a winner that’s a grinner to add to what is the most healthy genre out there. Writer/director Parker Finn, in his directorial debut Smile adapted from his own 2020 short Laura Hasn’t Slept, takes his simple but shudderingly effective concept and runs wildly with it.

Smile centres on therapist worker Dr. Rose Cotter (Sosie Bacon), who is left shaken when a patient kills herself in a session, after talking of being stalked by a presence only she can see, which appears in the guise of various people with a devious and unnerving grin. Then, things begin happening as Rose sees visions of this very entity, and must uncover what it is, what is real and how to stop it, by looking back into the past (and her own) for answers.

Smile is a boldly nasty and even more boldly cruel horror picture. A genuinely frightening film that picks up on a very universal uncomfortable fear most of us have of being watched or stared at and weaponises it in the shape of a truly original hellish horror monster befitting Dante’s Inferno by the end, in what could prove to be one of the breakout horrors of the 2020s. 

Utilising the inescapable prowling concept of fate to great means, Smile is very much like a It Follows or The Ring style story. Finn makes expert use of traditional horror techniques and storytelling, while infusing some deviously dark twists here and there, as he relays a brutal story of the stigmatisation, isolation and hopelessness that comes with mental health, going all out in a particularly brutally honest climax. 

Any cliches put to work, are done so to urge viewers to participate, before cutting them down with the levels the film is actually prepared to go to. While also infusing some things with a wicked sense of parody and demented joyfulness, befitting of this mostly concealed smiling tormentor. While the oft inverted camerawork by Charlie Sarroff’s cinematography and Cristobal Tapia de Veer’s fluctuating pulsating score likewise carry this same level of dark taunting. Finn orchestrates everything well, using jump scares as skilfully as subtle ones, while the story of inevitability and its effective lore is well established.

Sosie Bacon is utterly captivating in the lead role, and her performance not only meshes so well with the themes of the movie but she captures the shattering hopelessness that comes with being trapped and attacked by trauma and internal mental pain.

The more you think about Smile, and some of its memorably horrifying scenes, the more it tunnels inescapably into your head. As its almost cynical narrative dissects the realities and Final Destination-esque force of suffering that can come with undressed trauma and mental health and attitudes towards it.

Putting it bluntly this will shit up a fair few viewers I’d wager…who may just have to try and grin and bear it. Still, it’s worth putting on a brave face for! 😃

SECTION 8

If you saw Netflix’s recent uber-budgeted Russo-directed action blockbuster The Gray Man on Netflix then Section 8 may well ring a few bells. Knocked out for just 5 million dollars Section 8 does a decent enough job of telling much the same story by roping in a couple of ageing 1980s action stars and throwing them up against some younger faces – cult martial arts star Scott Adkins and former True Blood star Ryan Kwanten, his career in resurgence after the recent Glorious and last year’s disturbing Them TV mini-series. Kwanten’s the one to watch here, agreeably convincing as a ruthless two-fisted, gun-toting former special forces soldier who has “nothing to lose” and is enlisted by a covert organisation to do the dirty work it would prefer to keep secret.

Five years after an operation in Afghanistan wiped out most of his unit, Jake Atheron (Kwanten) crosses a line when he sets about a gang of thugs threatening his garage-owning “Uncle” Earl (Mickey Rourke who now seems to be melting from the top of his head down)  for protection money. The recriminations are devastating and Jake finds himself serving a lifetime prison sentence…until he’s sprung by the mysterious Sam Ramsey (Dermot Mulroney) who persuades him to join his shadowy government Black Ops squad called Section 8. Jake quickly becomes suspicious of the organisation’s operations and realises that he has become nothing more than an assassin and he goes rogue. Section 8 ain’t happy and set about trying to wipe him out even as he tries to hang on to what’s left of his humanity.

The result is 90-odd minutes of fairly standard action move stuff – kinetic fistfights, shoot-outs, car chases – that will best find favour with fairly undemanding action movie afficionados and people who haven’t seen The Gray Man. But in fairness it’s directed with a flair that belies its budgetary limitations – stock shots suggest a range of locations that the production clearly didn’t actually visit – and the endless action scenes, the film’s raison d’etre,  are adrenalized and punishing. Unashamedly and proudly a throwback to the era of straight-to-DVD action thrillers, Section 8 really has nothing new to say and is just a slick, modern spin on every routine action movie cliché imaginable. It does, however, deliver a brief respite from the sensitive touchy-feeliness of so much modern anxious-to-please cinema and its utter disposability is in many ways part of its primal appeal.

 

Section 8 is out now in the US

 

 

CONFESS, FLETCH

Adapting Fletch for a modern audience is a unique challenge. The wacky arrogance the character personifies is called out within Confess, Fletch as white male privilege, but it is intentionally employed to make Fletch the subject of the joke. Fletch films start with the character as high status, top of the world wise-cracking jerk, then bring him down to befuddled dope, only for the final act to reveal he never did lose his place steps ahead. That’s a delicate balance, but, impressively, the talented Jon Hamm fills out and modernizes his character for the 2020s with the confidence of Fletch himself.

The rest of the charming power of Confess, Fletch relies on the kind of movie the viewer was hoping for. Fans of the Chevy Chase films Fletch and Fletch Lives will be pleased to find that not much has changed. Sure, the digital cinematography grays out every shot into the Marvel-like cement paste we’ve come to expect. But essentially, Confess, Fletch is a throwback to old school slob-vs-snobs comedies that didn’t feel the need to make up for bad jokes by calling so much importance to themselves via credits stacked with improv stars. However, that means this movie is left with not much to distinguish it from your typical quirky detective series like Psych, Monk, or whatever the USA network happens to be cooking up this week.

The film is a bland but functional watch with the humorous highlights coming from scenes introducing the quirky supporting cast. While he gets a few great zingers off, the comedy of Fletch himself has been transferred to them, robbing him of the disguise-as-character antics for which he’s known. Perhaps it is a shame that Fletch didn’t become a series on the USA network; we hear that there, characters are welcome.

Confess Fletch is out now in the US

INU-OH

In the 14th century, an unlikely friendship is formed between a blind biwa player and a disfigured son of the leader of a Noh troupe in legendary anime filmmaker Masaaki Yuasa’s latest film, the epic rock opera; Inu-oh.

The story, based upon the novel Tales of the Heike: Inu-Oh by Hideo Furukawa, follows Tomona, a biwa player who becomes blind from a supernatural sword as a youngster, who meets Inu-oh, the son of a power-hungry Noh troupe leader suffering from a disfiguration that causes estrangement from his father, including a gourd mask to hide his face and a snake-like arm – together, the pair transform the art of storytelling, bringing their flair and vibe to the mastery of the Noh artform with Heike tribe tales. Tomona absolutely shreds whilst Inu-oh brings the stories to life with their incredible dancing and performance that brings vibrant fantasy-like qualities for the audience to enjoy.

What always stands out in a Yuasa-san project is how he has such a trademark style whilst also managing to make every single film or tv project feel truly unique. The art style manages to invoke the 14th century setting that couples beautifully with modern music and fantastical set-pieces – some of said set pieces especially reach the dizzy heights of being as epic as the likes of Queen’s Live-Aid performance and The Rolling Stones, with the audience in the narrative being a true extension of the audience watching in the real world. The music, co-written by Yuasa-san and Avu-chan (who voices Inu-oh) is enchanting and catchy – we can guarantee you will have the soundtrack on repeat after watching.

Inu-oh is a beautiful film that speaks deep about acceptance, seeing the world in a new light and the art of storytelling and is quintessential Yuasa. A unique retelling of a forgotten age of Japanese culture and history, that blends classical and modern elements seamlessly and is captivating viewing.

Inu-oh is in UK cinemas from 28th September 2022.