Scott Lang/Ant-Man (Paul Rudd) and Hope van Dyne/The Wasp (Evangeline Lilly) star in the first teaser trailer for Marvel Studios’ ANT-MAN AND THE WASP.
From the Marvel Cinematic Universe comes ANT-MAN AND THE WASP, a new chapter featuring heroes with the astonishing ability to shrink. In the aftermath of “Captain America: Civil War,” Scott Lang grapples with the consequences of his choices as both a Super Hero and a father. As he struggles to rebalance his home life with his responsibilities as Ant-Man, he’s confronted by Hope van Dyne and Dr. Hank Pym with an urgent new mission. Scott must once again put on the suit and learn to fight alongside the Wasp as the team works together to uncover secrets from the past.
ANT-MAN AND THE WASP is directed by Peyton Reed and stars Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly, Michael Pena, Walton Goggins, Bobby Cannavale, Judy Greer, Tip “T.I.” Harris, David Dastmalchian, Hannah John Kamen, Abby Ryder-Fortson, Randall Park, with Michelle Pfeiffer, with Laurence Fishburne, and Michael Douglas.
It’s kind of a slow month at the movies, so join me in a cinema experiment (cue Kenneth Strickfaden’s sparking, buzzing Frankenstein lab equipment). That’s because this weekend’s new flick is a real rarity for this time of year: a franchise entry. To be more precise, it’s the third part of a trilogy based upon (oh oh) a popular series of young adult novels (that sends a chill up my spine, only matched by the name “Nicholas Sparks”). And its setting is a most familiar backdrop for such stories, a dystopian future. The first one came out in 2014, followed a year later by the middle entry. But why the nearly three-year wait? Being “heavy” on the action stunts, the leading man was injured on the set, forcing a lengthy shut down. Will this derail its momentum? Well, generally January is the “multiplex graveyard” where franchise flicks come to die. So what is the experiment I mentioned? Well, I’ve not seen the two previous films in this series, so we’ll see if I can jump in cold. Most film fans believe that reading the novel a film is based on, should not be required for an adaptation. The same is said with film series or franchises. Is it necessary to see all the Marvel Studios movies before seeing next month’s BLACK PANTHER? Shouldn’t be, it should stand on its own. You could say the same for Bond (and that’s over 20 films). All right, time for me to jump off the diving board, into the dark, unseen pool that is MAZE RUNNER: THE DEATH CURE.
As I mentioned earlier, it’s sometime in the not so distant future (maybe around the corner from Fury Road). Roaring out of the desert comes a beat-up jeep/dune buggy hybrid driven by Jorge (Giancarlo Esposito) and Brenda (Rosa Salazar). They (part of a rebel group called the Gladers) are trying to intercept a train (owned by the evil corporation WCKD) that’s carrying kids (teens and pre-teens) that are immune to the disease that wiped out most of Earth, the ‘Flare’, a plague similar to the ‘Rage’ from 28 DAYS LATER that turns folks into rapid-running maniac killers (think WORLD WAR Z), though the infected have brief moments of calm when they can converse. WCKD’s gonna’ experiment on these captured kids in order to find a cure. Of course the two are outnumbered, until two more Gladers arrive in the nick of time (a repeated plot device). It’s the adult Vince (Barry Pepper) and twenty-something Thomas (Dylan O’Brien), who hopes to rescue his buddy Minho (Ki Hong Lee) from the train. Alas, after a furious fight, Minoh is not in the boxcar they separate from the train. Returning to the Glade HQ camp, they decide to send a small group to the fortress city on a rescue mission. After a near fatal encounter with a cave full of “Cranks” ( the infected, not the family from the holiday movie classic), they finally arrive outside the city where desperate mobs hope to get past the machine gun drones and tower cannons. A former friend/ foe they thought was dead, Gally (Will Pouter), takes Thomas and his crew to the underground kingpin, the Flare-ravaged Lawrence (Walton Goggins), who offers help by way of a secret passage into the gleaming city. There they make their way to the imposing tower that is the home of WCKD. Inside Minho is a guinea pig in the lab headed by Ava Paige (Patrick Clarkson) who is assisted by former Glader (and I’m guessing former paramour of Thomas), Teresa (Kaya Scodelario). Does Thomas and his band of Gladers stand a chance against the WCKD forces headed by enforcer/ hitman Janson (Aidan Gillen)? And what will happen when he sees Teresa once more? The fate of the planet seems to rest on the young man’s shoulders.
Whew, with all the narrow escapes this flick feels like one of those Golden Age movie serials. with all fifteen of its chapters smushed into one feature. But not in a good way, like RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK. The actors are almost like chess pieces, being moved from one action sequence-square to the next. As for the cast newcomers (those still passing for teens), O’Brien is a competent leading man, all earnest determination. He’s not given much of a chance to reconnect with Scodelario’s Teresa, though she ably conveys the character’s torment over switching sides (I’m guessing that happened in the previous entry). Thomas Brodie-Sangster as Glader Newt has a nice tragic arc as he realizes that the Flare may consume him before they finish the mission. Salazar has an appealing “tough chick” vibe as the no-nonsense Brenda who doesn’t hesitate when facing any danger. Poulter, coming off his very, very bad cop role in DETROIT, continues to impress as the “wild card’ ally who may have other motives. All for the screen vets, Esposito and Pepper are regulated to adult mentors/ cheerleaders. Saddled with some constricting make-up (Lon Chaney’s Eric meets the Red Skull), Goggins seems muzzled as the big boss of the under, underworld. Clarkson is all cool menace as the passive aggressive Paige, a power-mad mean, mean mama. The only actor that seems to be having a bit of fun is Gillen as the cackling, unrelenting killer king (if he had a mustache I’m sure he’d be twirling it as he boasts about terminating Thomas).
At a rump-numbing 142 minutes, this flick from director Wes Ball (who helmed the previous two) feels as though it’s an attempt to tie up the many loose ends, while satisfying the novel’s fans. Since Ball is an effects artists, all the scenes of the glistening metropolis are impressive. Unfortunately the characters are no more than action figures in a super-deluxe play set. They run down endless corridors (enough for several Aaron Sorkin TV shows), nearly running into clumps of bad guys who shoot as well as the stormtroopers in the middle Star Wars trilogy (lousy). In the next scene they’re defying gravity with stunts that fans wouldn’t buy in a Superman movie (a bus and helicopter, take a guess). And like many action blockbusters, we get countless endings, until things mercifully grind to a halt, and the whole thing lands with a big thud. As I mentioned at the start, this is my first exposure to this series. And I can safely say MAZE RUNNER: THE DEATH CURE will certainly be the last.
Serial killer movies are like westerns or gangster flicks; there are all levels of them from cheap slasher exploitation to procedural ones where the heroes are scientific-minded detectives and all sorts of variations in between. MOJAVE, written and directed by Oscar winner William Monahan (for writing THE DEPARTED) is the existential and psychological type. It stars Oscar Isaac, Mark Wahlberg, Garret Hedlund, and Walton Goggins. With that cast and pedigree, you would expect MOJAVE to be a major release, but the new film has slipped quietly into few theaters this weekend with little fanfare. It’s seriously flawed and I understand why the studio had little faith in it, but it has its moments and for adventurous moviegoers it’s worth seeking out.
Garrett Hedlund stars in MOJAVE as Thomas, a shaggy-haired movie producer who has it all: a beautiful wife and child, a sprawling home, and a foxy French mistress (Hayley Magnus). We first meet him as he hops out of bed and drives his jeep to the titular desert with nothing but two bottles of vodka and some water. It seems he’s out there to end his life but changes his mind when leather-clad drifter Jack (Oscar Isaac) stumbles onto his campsite. Jack holds a rifle with seven notches in it, the same number as murder victims that have recently been found out there in the Mojave. The two men wax philosophical for a while about Jesus and Ahab and Shakespeare and selling one’s soul, exchanging elliptical dialog like “Who are you?”…”No one in particular”….”Anyone in general?” Thomas manages to avoid Jack’s deadly intent, but in the process he accidentally kills an innocent man. He heads back to L.A., but Jack is on his tail CAPE FEAR-style, with revenge on his mind.
MOJAVE is at times a fairly intense movie, visually stylish and thematically creepy. It begins extremely well before descending into a series of inevitable murders and confrontations and a predictable climax where our hero discovers that when push comes to shove, we’re all brutes and animals. With THE DEPARTED, Monahan had the frame of an earlier Chinese crime film to hang his story and dialog on, but this film is less plot-driven and more a rambling character study. The acting is uneven. Hedlund is scowling and surly throughout, mumbling with an ever-present cigarette dangling from his lips. You wonder how he ever became a movie exec. In fact, the world of Hollywood insiders in MOJAVE plays more like that of vulgar mid-level gangsters than successful movie folk. Wahlberg in a small role phones in his performance. I don’t mean that as an insult – he has four scenes and in three of them he’s talking on the phone. Goggins is low key but funny in another minor part as Thomas’ manager. Best is Oscar Isaac, excellent as an intelligent psychotic who knows the rules and manages to violate every code of human decency while still keeping arm’s-length from the law (where are the police in this movie anyway?). Unfortunately, Jack is given little motivation for his evil deeds and no back story. It’s not a great movie, but if you want to get in out of the cold for a couple of hours, you could do worse than MOJAVE.
Director Quentin Tarantino’s THE HATEFUL EIGHT is now playing in select theaters in “glorious 70mm” (including St. Louis) and will open nationwide on December 31, 2015.
Of this ensemble cast, which includes Samuel L. Jackson, Kurt Russell, Walton Goggins, Demian Bichir, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen, Bruce Dern and Channing Tatum, the one standout is the performance by Jennifer Jason Leigh.
Leigh comments on her character’s place among the eight: “Daisy is a gutsy girl, and she’s a bit of an animal in her own way. But all of these people have their values, and they all have their soft spots.”
“Jennifer Jason Leigh is fearless,” producer Stacey Sher says. “She’ll go anywhere, she’ll try anything, she’ll push it all the way, and as a result her character is constantly surprising throughout the entire journey.”
In THE HATEFUL EIGHT, set six or eight or twelve years after the Civil War, a stagecoach hurtles through the wintry Wyoming landscape. The passengers, bounty hunter John Ruth (Kurt Russell) and his fugitive Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh), race towards the town of Red Rock where Ruth, known in these parts as “The Hangman,” will bring Domergue to justice.
Along the road, they encounter two strangers: Major Marquis Warren (Samuel L. Jackson), a black former union soldier turned infamous bounty hunter, and Chris Mannix (Walton Goggins), a southern renegade who claims to be the town’s new Sheriff. Losing their lead on the blizzard, Ruth, Domergue, Warren and Mannix seek refuge at Minnie’s Haberdashery, a stagecoach stopover on a mountain pass.
When they arrive at Minnie’s, they are greeted not by the proprietor but by four unfamiliar faces. Bob (Demian Bichir), who’s taking care of Minnie’s while she’s visiting her mother, is holed up with Oswaldo Mobray (Tim Roth), the hangman of Red Rock, cow-puncher Joe Gage (Michael Madsen), and Confederate General Sanford Smithers (Bruce Dern). As the storm overtakes the mountainside stopover, our eight travelers come to learn they may not make it to Red Rock after all…
In his review, Jim Batts says the film is “enthralling, outrageous, and ambitious.”
For the last couple of decades film fans have been bemoaning the lack of flicks set in the old wild West. Many even remarked that the “horse opera” or “oater” was a dead genre, that its heydays were nearly twenty five years ago (Clint Eastwood’s UNFORGIVEN took Oscar gold in 1992). At the end of 2015, the corpse of the Western, seems to have been revived. And who are the “mad scientists”, well “mad movie makers” perhaps, shocking this corpse back to life via their electrifying talents? Well, Oscar winner Alejandro Inarritu, fresh off his BIRDMAN triumph, puts Leonardo DiCaprio through the wringer (emotional and physical) in THE REVENANT, which we’ll discuss in length when it gallops into theatres in a couple of weeks. The film that’s out on Christmas Day (in a very special limited release) comes from the ultimate movie fanatic turned film maker Quentin Tarantino. Now it was almost three years ago to the day that he first tried on his Stetson with DJANGO UNCHAINED, an ode to one of his beloved “grindhouse” staples, the “blackspoitation” action flick mixed with the old-fashioned “sagebrush” story. Now QT is hitting the trail once more, this time attempting to recreate the “road show” film releases of the 1950’s and 60’s with a “saddle saga” more epic in scope, eschewing digital projection and presenting it in select theatres in 70 mm (excuse me, Super Panavision 70 mm), even filming it with the same lenses that created many of those revered 60’s spectacles. And to give it the proper 60’s Western polish, he’s actually recruited the man responsible for the signature scores of that genre in that era, Ennio Morricone, to provide the music (including an overture prior to the opening titles). All this to accompany the thundering hoofbeats and exploding six guns of THE HATEFUL EIGHT. Giddyup!
As the strains of the “maestro’s” theme builds, the film opens up on the cold, snowy trails of Wyoming, not long after the end of the Civil War. A solitary figure waves down a lone stagecoach. Only two passengers are inside: bounty hunter John “the Hangman” Ruth (Kurt Russell) and his prisoner, the notorious Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh). After reminding Ruth of a previous meeting, the man who flagged them down, another bounty hunter, Major Marquis Warren (Samuel L Jackson), is allowed to join them (after lots of negotiations). Soon the coach is full when Chris Mannix (Walton Goggins) emerges from the woods and pleads for the last seat, telling the men that he is also headed to Red Rock to become the town’s new Sheriff (the men are very skeptical of this “wild card”). The coach’s driver soon realizes that they won’t outrun the approaching blizzard and must wait it out at the nearby “stage stop”, Minnie’s Haberdashery. Ruth and Warren are surprised to discover that owners Minnie and “Sweet Dave” are nowhere to be found. According to one of their new staff, Bob (Demian Bichir), the couple are visiting relatives, over the ridge. Once again, the bounty hunters are skeptical. But they’re not the only ones stranded. Trying to keep warm are the stoic cowboy Joe Gage (Michael Madsen), gregarious Englishman Oswaldo Mobray (Tim Roth), and former Confederate officer General Sandy Smithers (Bruce Dern). As the storm rages, Ruth and Warren soon believe that these men are not who they say they are. Could one of them, or all of them, be in “cahoots” with the dangerous, desperate Daisy?
Pretty impressive octet, eh? Actually there’s a few more cast members (including a very hot, young Hollywood hunk not seen ij the film’s ads) who are also very impressive. As you see, the majority of the eight are QT vets. The most frequent member, Jackson, really becomes the story’s main protagonist, deducing and dishing out justice. There’s more than a touch of Jules (his breakout role in PULP FICTION) in Warren, the man who must deftly manuever through the still wounded by war America. Jackson still projects that fierce determination and intelligence we’ve seen in his very best work, making him a most memorable Western hero. Closer to the usual “oater” lead “buckeroo” is Russell (nearly hidden beneath that walrus,Yosemite Sam ‘stache) as the swaggering man of action (said swagger almost channeling Western icon John Wayne), who and often succeeds at being the alpha male among this “wolf pack”. His boisterous performance at times turns Minnie’s into a private concert hall, entertaining and intimidating us with his outrageous bluster and behavior. Part of that behavior is his brutal treatment of Daisy, somewhat shifting our sympathies to her. That’s until her true, sinister nature kicks in. Leigh (making her astounding arrival into the “Tarantino-verse”) is a sullen, feral she-demon, spewing obscenities and racial epithets like a spitting cobra. With Leigh’s silent glare she tells us that she’s just as savage, if not more so, than any hombre.
Just as watchable is Goggins, who had a small role in DJANGO, as Mannix. His body language conveys a very malleable misfit, whose loyalties can switch in seconds, even as his somewhat think skull struggles to process each new curve thrown at him. After racking up a terrific TV career (from “The Shield” to “Justified”), he proves to be a great screen presence. Another vet from that earlier flick has been a screen star before the birth of Mr. Goggins. Dern as Smithers seems to be the stereotyped, docile old “coot” in a rocking chair, but when he’s verbally poked, he shows us that seething stare, warning his tormentor like a rattlesnake, that his fury will be unleashed. It’s a great follow-up to Dern’s award-worthy work a couple of years ago in NEBRASKA. Roth has a unique spin on the old cliché of the smiling, refined English “dandy” whose effete manners hides his motives. Madsen is surly and sullen as the tight-lipped, close-to-the-vest cowpoke, who is all squint-eyed, laid-back menace. Bichir gives a toned-down performance as the deferential Bob, who suffers ethnic slurs without blinking while trying to keep his “customers’ comfortable.
Much as with his earlier “horse opera”, Tarantino’s new film is a bit of a hybrid. His original screenplay and story is almost equal parts Zane Grey and Agatha Christie, reminiscent of her oft-filmed “Ten Little Indians” (some have even called it a “cowboy CLUE”). It’s a drama of observed looks and gestures that can suddenly erupt in bloody violence (often as over-the-top as any of George Romero’s zombie classics). Since so much of the story is set in Minnie’s roomy general store, many have speculated that this may have been conceived as a stage play. That’s not to infer that Tarantino has treated it as such. His camera swoops in to capture the gunplay, while his edits and cuts direct us right to the most drama and conflict. He even makes the weather a character, as the blizzard, like a howling beast, presses in the cracked door. This is particularly true with the visuals used during a flashback tale. You can almost feel the frigid air cutting through you right to the bone. It may seem an odd choice to shoot a mostly indoor story with “old school” 70mm, but the results are never “stagey” or claustrophobic. The superb, sweeping score by Morricone certainly aides in opening things up. Best of all may be that Tarantino dialogue, though peppered with “f-bombs’ and “n-words”, is gloriously “un-PC”, and often close to poetic. We can see the delight in the cast’s eyes has they savor each syllable like a fine wine. He’s been threatening a retirement from films, but hopefully this true cinema lover (it truly oozes out of every frame) will continue to keep us entertained with work as enthralling, outrageous, and ambitious as THE HATEFUL EIGHT. Whoa!
4.5 Out of 5
THE HATEFUL EIGHT opens in Super Panavision 70mm in select theatres (including Wehrenberg’s Ronnies 20 Cine in St. Louis) on Christmas Day. It opens in wide release on New Year’s Eve
The Weinstein Company has released a brand new, seven plus minute featurette for their highly anticipated film, THE HATEFUL EIGHT, written and directed by Quentin Tarantino.
THE HATEFUL EIGHT will have a 70 mm roadshow release in select theaters starting on Christmas Day.
Not sure what a roadshow is? Watch below to hear all about it, straight from Quentin Tarantino and the cast members.
In THE HATEFUL EIGHT, set six or eight or twelve years after the Civil War, a stagecoach hurtles through the wintry Wyoming landscape. The passengers, bounty hunter John Ruth (Kurt Russell) and his fugitive Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh), race towards the town of Red Rock where Ruth, known in these parts as “The Hangman,” will bring Domergue to justice. Along the road, they encounter two strangers: Major Marquis Warren (Samuel L. Jackson), a black former union soldier turned infamous bounty hunter, and Chris Mannix (Walton Goggins), a southern renegade who claims to be the town’s new Sheriff.
Losing their lead on the blizzard, Ruth, Domergue, Warren and Mannix seek refuge at Minnie’s Haberdashery, a stagecoach stopover on a mountain pass. When they arrive at Minnie’s, they are greeted not by the proprietor but by four unfamiliar faces. Bob (Demian Bichir), who’s taking care of Minnie’s while she’s visiting her mother, is holed up with Oswaldo Mobray (Tim Roth), the hangman of Red Rock, cow-puncher Joe Gage (Michael Madsen), and Confederate General Sanford Smithers (Bruce Dern).
As the storm overtakes the mountainside stopover, our eight travelers come to learn they may not make it to Red Rock after all… (Trailer)
THE HATEFUL EIGHT hits theaters on December 25, 2015 (70 mm release), January 8, 2016 (nationwide).
The Weinstein Company has released a brand new poster for their highly anticipated film, THE HATEFUL EIGHT, written and directed by Quentin Tarantino.
The new TV Spot will air during Sunday’s showing of “The Walking Dead.” (via EW)
(ew.com)
In THE HATEFUL EIGHT, set six or eight or twelve years after the Civil War, a stagecoach hurtles through the wintry Wyoming landscape. The passengers, bounty hunter John Ruth (Kurt Russell) and his fugitive Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh), race towards the town of Red Rock where Ruth, known in these parts as “The Hangman,” will bring Domergue to justice. Along the road, they encounter two strangers: Major Marquis Warren (Samuel L. Jackson), a black former union soldier turned infamous bounty hunter, and Chris Mannix (Walton Goggins), a southern renegade who claims to be the town’s new Sheriff.
Losing their lead on the blizzard, Ruth, Domergue, Warren and Mannix seek refuge at Minnie’s Haberdashery, a stagecoach stopover on a mountain pass. When they arrive at Minnie’s, they are greeted not by the proprietor but by four unfamiliar faces. Bob (Demian Bichir), who’s taking care of Minnie’s while she’s visiting her mother, is holed up with Oswaldo Mobray (Tim Roth), the hangman of Red Rock, cow-puncher Joe Gage (Michael Madsen), and Confederate General Sanford Smithers (Bruce Dern). As the storm overtakes the mountainside stopover, our eight travelers come to learn they may not make it to Red Rock after all…
Starring Samuel L. Jackson, Kurt Russell, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Walton Goggins, Demian Bichir, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen, Bruce Dern, Channing Tatum and more, THE HATEFUL EIGHT hits theaters on December 25, 2015 in special 70mm release, and on January 8, 2016 nationwide.
The Weinstein Company has released a new trailer for their highly anticipated film, THE HATEFUL EIGHT, written and directed by Quentin Tarantino.
In post-Civil War Wyoming, eight travelers try to find shelter during a blizzard but get involved in a plot of betrayal and deception. Will they survive?
Starring Samuel L. Jackson, Kurt Russell, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Walton Goggins, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen, Bruce Dern, Demian Bichir, Channing Tatum and more, find out on December 25, 2015 in special 70mm release, and on January 8, 2016 nationwide.
In THE HATEFUL EIGHT, set six or eight or twelve years after the Civil War, a stagecoach hurtles through the wintry Wyoming landscape. The passengers, bounty hunter John Ruth (Kurt Russell) and his fugitive Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh), race towards the town of Red Rock where Ruth, known in these parts as “The Hangman,” will bring Domergue to justice. Along the road, they encounter two strangers: Major Marquis Warren (Samuel L. Jackson), a black former union soldier turned infamous bounty hunter, and Chris Mannix (Walton Goggins), a southern renegade who claims to be the town’s new Sheriff.
Losing their lead on the blizzard, Ruth, Domergue, Warren and Mannix seek refuge at Minnie’s Haberdashery, a stagecoach stopover on a mountain pass. When they arrive at Minnie’s, they are greeted not by the proprietor but by four unfamiliar faces. Bob (Demian Bichir), who’s taking care of Minnie’s while she’s visiting her mother, is holed up with Oswaldo Mobray (Tim Roth), the hangman of Red Rock, cow-puncher Joe Gage (Michael Madsen), and Confederate General Sanford Smithers (Bruce Dern). As the storm overtakes the mountainside stopover, our eight travelers come to learn they may not make it to Red Rock after all…
So we’re finally in the last stretch of Summer, the slow march to reach the (hopefully) cooler temps just past Labor Day. And along with those Fall breezes will come the more, somber award-worthy films. But there’s still time for a bit of mayhem to squeeze into those final August days. And mayhem seems to be the main purpose of this new release hitting the multiplex. Its main character is on a mission (not for a microchip or some, such macguffin, but to survive along with his gal) and many assassins are mowed down along with even more property damage (they blow up good). But unlike Ethan Hunt or Mad Max, he’s not aware of his “particular set of skills” at the movie’s beginning. Like Clark Kent, is he meek and “mild-mannered”? Well, more like meek and “mellow”, thanks to some tasty herbs. And he’s played by an actor mostly known for his cerebral characters, rather than as muscled men of action. But, be ready for “Really Rough R-rated” violence, “ultra-violence”, you could say, in the appropriately titled AMERICAN ULTRA.
Mike Holland (Jesse Eisenberg) and Phoebe Larson (Kristen Stewart) are laid back twenty-somethings living in a sleepy Ohio town. He spends his days doodling the comic strip adventures of “Apollo Ape” while manning the register at the “Cash and Carry” convenience store, while she is the receptionist/secretary for a bail bondsman. They spends their evenings enjoying each other along with lots and lots of weed. But Mike wants more and plans to marry his “Feebs” in Hawaii until a last-minute panic attack sends them back to their ramshackle home. Meanwhile at CIA headquarters Victoria Lasseter (Connie Britton) is tipped off by an anonymous source that her pet project will be terminated. This is confirmed after she confronts fellow agency supervisor Adrian Yates (Topher Grace). Victoria, aided by her “go-to-guy” Petey (Tony Hale), dashes away to stop the “scrub” operation. Back at work, Mike’s night shift is interrupted by the sight of two fellas tinkering with his “beater” car. When he confronts them, they pull out some heavy-firepower artillery. And then something…snaps within Mike. Thus begins a long,desperate night that finds Mike and Phoebe facing insurmountable odds in a fight for their lives.
The usually reserved Eisenberg makes a convincing, if reluctant, deadly whirling dervish. He seems much more comfortable as the love-struck, anxiety-ridden stoner, but then that may be more in line with previous screen roles. After the switch in his brain has been flipped, Mike is in a constant state of confused agitation, not knowing what reflexes will suddenly kick-in. Eisenberg plays it more sweet than snarky especially in scenes opposite his ADVENTURELAND love interest Stewart. As Phoebe, she’s equal parts caregiver (very understanding of Mike’s odd ticks and anxieties), partner (not bad at taking on the baddies), and lover (this has to be the ultimate relationship test). Stewart and Eisenberg really connect with an easy chemistry which allows her to be a bit more natural on-screen than with many previous film partners. And it’s great that she’s not reduced to another “damsel-in-distress” and is allowed to get truly down and dirty with the fellas, at times looking like an extra from THE EVIL DEAD flicks. Speaking of ladies getting to play in the action “sandbox”, hurrah for the casting of Britton, who gets to break away from her usual big screen matriarch roles. She still gets to be concerned and caring, but it’s tempered here with a whip-smart, no-backing-down persona. That ‘spunk” serves her well in the scenes opposite the screaming, spitting Grace whose venomous tirades would cut most folks to ribbons. We can’t wait for this slick-suited weasel to get her “just deserts”. Walton Goggins shows up as the most deranged and sadistic of all the “hench-persons”, the gleeful “Laugher”, while Hale scores many laughs as Britton’s frantic, frightened “pencil-pushing” partner back at HQ. But the film’s loudest guffaws come from John Leguizamo as Mike’s motor-mouthed, street-slang slinging dealer/pal “Rose”. He just destroys every scene with his scatter-shot, energetic delivery. He’s quite the MVP of this flick.
The script by Max Landis (CHRONICLE) throws elements of THE MATRIX, KICK-ASS, SUPER, THE BIG LEBOWSKI, and the Jason Bourne flicks into a blender, and mixes up a cocktail that’s often sweet, but usually tart to the point of sour. The Mike/Phoebe romance is nearly drowned in a sea of gore and gunplay. As in the recent thriller THE EQUALIZER, Mike is adept at using everyday objects as weapons which lead, of course, to a big, bloody showdown in, of course, a big box store (“Clean-up in hardware aisle 7”). After the “found-footage” party hi-jinks of PROJECT X, director Nima Nourizadeh shows that he can keep the hits, and destruction, coming, but the film, after a promising first act, just seems to lurch from one blood-splattered set-piece to the next with the character development lost among the rapidly growing body count. The audience is finally numbed as we wait until things finally quiet down. Hey the ghouls in ZOMBIELAND got off easy compared to the creeps that Eisenberg dispatches here. There may be a way to make stoner/sleeper agents entertaining, but AMERICAN ULTRA bogarts the bloody bullet-filled blunt and ends up being a nasty bad trip, man.
Check out the insane new trailer for AMERICAN ULTRA.
The film is a fast-paced action comedy about Mike (Eisenberg), a seemingly hapless and unmotivated stoner whose small-town life with his live-in girlfriend, Phoebe (Stewart), is suddenly turned upside down.
Unbeknownst to him, Mike is actually a highly trained, lethal sleeper agent. In the blink of an eye, as his secret past comes back to haunt him, Mike is thrust into the middle of a deadly government operation and is forced to summon his inner action-hero in order to survive.
Directed by Nima Nourizadeh and written by Max Landis, the film also features Connie Britton, Topher Grace, Tony Hale, John Leguizamo, Bill Pullman & Walton Goggins.
