Aline Review: The Unofficial Celine Dion Biopic Is Officially One Of The Most Uncanny Cinematic Experiences | SlashFilm Reviews

https://ift.tt/ikC4SAJ Review: The Unofficial Celine Dion Biopic Is Officially One Of The Most Uncanny Cinematic Experiences | SlashFilm Reviews
https://ift.tt/ikC4SAJ Review: The Unofficial Celine Dion Biopic Is Officially One Of The Most Uncanny Cinematic Experiences | SlashFilm Reviews
https://ift.tt/ikC4SAJ Review: The Unofficial Celine Dion Biopic Is Officially One Of The Most Uncanny Cinematic Experiences | SlashFilm Reviews

"Aline" might truly be one of the most bizarre movies to come out of the arthouse circuit. A biopic that's not a biopic, a movie that manages to gain the rights to the artist's music but refuses to lavish any attention on the beloved songs or how they were made. A movie where the 57-year-old director stars as a Céline Dion surrogate from 5 years old to 40 years old, her face eerily pasted onto a tiny child's body like some kind of malformed hobbit. A movie where things keep happening at a relentless pace, without any semblance of dramatic tension or narrative. Is this camp? Or at least, some strange fever dream from the mind of a Céline Dion superfan?

No, "Aline" is the "unofficial" biopic of Céline Dion, wherein director and star Valerie Lemercier plays Aline Dieu, a Canadian girl with the voice of an angel who gets discovered at the age of 12 and soon rockets to international superstardom. But her success is complicated by her romance with her longtime manager who first discovers her — and is 20 years older than her, too. The film's central romance reflects the real relationship between Dion and her longtime husband René Angélil, also 20 years older than the singer.

"Aline" is a Céline Dion biopic in all but name, and even cheekily nods to the real artist who inspired the film, with Aline's future manager and husband Guy-Claude Kamar (Sylvain Marcel) mistakenly calling her "Céline" before he gets corrected. The film even strictly follows the events of Dion's life, from her humble beginnings in a crowded Quebec family (one of 14 siblings!), to her global superstardom, to her many Vegas residencies. But, perhaps refreshingly though a bit perplexingly, "Aline" isn't much interested in the career and music of Céline Dion. It's only interested in her love story.

The Power Of Love — And Digital De-Aging

The music biopic has never recovered since "Walk Hard" so efficiently and brutally dismantled it. And "Aline," starcrossed ambitions that it has, can't help falling upon those biopic tropes that "Walk Hard" already skewered: the artist towards the end of their career reflecting back on their life, the flashback to their pastoral childhood, the many, many montages. But one thing immediately sets "Aline" apart from the rest, and it may not be for the better: digital de-aging.

For some reason, Lemercier insists on playing Aline throughout her life, first appearing as a 5-year-old (thankfully they spared us a terrifying baby from "Twilight" moment here) singing at her brother's wedding — or rather, her partially hidden face pasted onto the body of a 5-year-old. The obfuscation doesn't help: our first glimpse of Aline is terrifying, like seeing Gollum halfway through his transformation from Andy Serkis to mo-cap creature. Lemercier's performance as Aline is perpetually doe-eyed throughout her life, making her feel like a fan's vague impression of a musical diva and not a person. 

The broad, cartoonish performances of the rest of the cast around her don't help; everyone in the ensemble — apart from Marcel, who appears to be the only actor to have made the choice to play a human — acts like the wandered in off a "Muppets" movie, except they're the Muppets. All of Aline's family members appear to be costumed and made up to be older than their respective ages throughout the film, in what one can only assume is an accidental display of Brechtian theatricality. Increased exposure to the bizarre de-aging effect doesn't make it any less uncanny: try as they might, Aline always looks like she has a 57-year-old woman's face pasted on her body, up through her 30s, and by then, the film's bizarre narrative choices will have taken your attention.

Aline Will Go On...

Another one of the great obstacles of a biopic is crafting some kind of narrative out of someone's life. In a music biopic, it's typically drugs or debauchery or divorce; in show business dramas, it's the rise of stardom and the painful pull of romance (and all the melodrama therein). "Aline" elects to follow the show business route, but for some reason, skips the stardom part and goes straight for the romance — an even stranger choice when you realize that the film, unlike other "unauthorized" music biopics, managed to gain the rights to Dion's most famous songs. There are plenty of montages, but they're used as a way to fast-forward through Aline's biggest career landmarks — the only reference we have to "My Heart Will Go On," one of Dion's biggest international hits and a song the film did get the rights to, is that Aline doesn't like it when she first hears it. Time has no meaning, dramatic tension doesn't exist, and before you know it, Aline is on her second Vegas residency.

But perhaps that's all worth it for the grand and epic romance between Aline and Guy-Claude, right? Not so much. The film never overcomes the discomfort over their age difference (that Marcel looks all of his 57 years when he first meets 12-year-old Aline does not help), nor does it ever give us a reason to care about their relationship apart from Lemercier's insipid stares at Marcel in every scene. The romance around which this film supposedly revolves falls victim to that same lack of dramatic tension that the narrative suffers — things just happen. Aline and Guy-Claude have their first kiss, cut to the next scene, it's 15 years later and they're married. A "Star is Born"-inspired final song attempts to give weight to their decades-long love story, as a 40-something Aline mourns her husband's death, but the song is terrible and we have ceased caring.

Perhaps these wild swings and baffling narrative choices were all intentional? Perhaps this was Lemercier calling attention to the overused unreality of digital de-aging in the movie business. Maybe it is camp. Whatever it is, "Aline" is one bizarre cinematic experience.

/Film Rating: 4 out of 10

Read this next: The 14 Greatest Biopics Of The 21st Century

The post Aline Review: The Unofficial Celine Dion Biopic is Officially One of the Most Uncanny Cinematic Experiences appeared first on /Film.

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April 06, 2022 at 10:44PM
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Aline Review: The Unofficial Celine Dion Biopic Is Officially One Of The Most Uncanny Cinematic Experiences | SlashFilm Reviews

https://ift.tt/ikC4SAJ Review: The Unofficial Celine Dion Biopic Is Officially One Of The Most Uncanny Cinematic Experiences | SlashFilm Reviews
https://ift.tt/ikC4SAJ Review: The Unofficial Celine Dion Biopic Is Officially One Of The Most Uncanny Cinematic Experiences | SlashFilm Reviews

"Aline" might truly be one of the most bizarre movies to come out of the arthouse circuit. A biopic that's not a biopic, a movie that manages to gain the rights to the artist's music but refuses to lavish any attention on the beloved songs or how they were made. A movie where the 57-year-old director stars as a Céline Dion surrogate from 5 years old to 40 years old, her face eerily pasted onto a tiny child's body like some kind of malformed hobbit. A movie where things keep happening at a relentless pace, without any semblance of dramatic tension or narrative. Is this camp? Or at least, some strange fever dream from the mind of a Céline Dion superfan?

No, "Aline" is the "unofficial" biopic of Céline Dion, wherein director and star Valerie Lemercier plays Aline Dieu, a Canadian girl with the voice of an angel who gets discovered at the age of 12 and soon rockets to international superstardom. But her success is complicated by her romance with her longtime manager who first discovers her — and is 20 years older than her, too. The film's central romance reflects the real relationship between Dion and her longtime husband René Angélil, also 20 years older than the singer.

"Aline" is a Céline Dion biopic in all but name, and even cheekily nods to the real artist who inspired the film, with Aline's future manager and husband Guy-Claude Kamar (Sylvain Marcel) mistakenly calling her "Céline" before he gets corrected. The film even strictly follows the events of Dion's life, from her humble beginnings in a crowded Quebec family (one of 14 siblings!), to her global superstardom, to her many Vegas residencies. But, perhaps refreshingly though a bit perplexingly, "Aline" isn't much interested in the career and music of Céline Dion. It's only interested in her love story.

The Power Of Love — And Digital De-Aging

The music biopic has never recovered since "Walk Hard" so efficiently and brutally dismantled it. And "Aline," starcrossed ambitions that it has, can't help falling upon those biopic tropes that "Walk Hard" already skewered: the artist towards the end of their career reflecting back on their life, the flashback to their pastoral childhood, the many, many montages. But one thing immediately sets "Aline" apart from the rest, and it may not be for the better: digital de-aging.

For some reason, Lemercier insists on playing Aline throughout her life, first appearing as a 5-year-old (thankfully they spared us a terrifying baby from "Twilight" moment here) singing at her brother's wedding — or rather, her partially hidden face pasted onto the body of a 5-year-old. The obfuscation doesn't help: our first glimpse of Aline is terrifying, like seeing Gollum halfway through his transformation from Andy Serkis to mo-cap creature. Lemercier's performance as Aline is perpetually doe-eyed throughout her life, making her feel like a fan's vague impression of a musical diva and not a person. 

The broad, cartoonish performances of the rest of the cast around her don't help; everyone in the ensemble — apart from Marcel, who appears to be the only actor to have made the choice to play a human — acts like the wandered in off a "Muppets" movie, except they're the Muppets. All of Aline's family members appear to be costumed and made up to be older than their respective ages throughout the film, in what one can only assume is an accidental display of Brechtian theatricality. Increased exposure to the bizarre de-aging effect doesn't make it any less uncanny: try as they might, Aline always looks like she has a 57-year-old woman's face pasted on her body, up through her 30s, and by then, the film's bizarre narrative choices will have taken your attention.

Aline Will Go On...

Another one of the great obstacles of a biopic is crafting some kind of narrative out of someone's life. In a music biopic, it's typically drugs or debauchery or divorce; in show business dramas, it's the rise of stardom and the painful pull of romance (and all the melodrama therein). "Aline" elects to follow the show business route, but for some reason, skips the stardom part and goes straight for the romance — an even stranger choice when you realize that the film, unlike other "unauthorized" music biopics, managed to gain the rights to Dion's most famous songs. There are plenty of montages, but they're used as a way to fast-forward through Aline's biggest career landmarks — the only reference we have to "My Heart Will Go On," one of Dion's biggest international hits and a song the film did get the rights to, is that Aline doesn't like it when she first hears it. Time has no meaning, dramatic tension doesn't exist, and before you know it, Aline is on her second Vegas residency.

But perhaps that's all worth it for the grand and epic romance between Aline and Guy-Claude, right? Not so much. The film never overcomes the discomfort over their age difference (that Marcel looks all of his 57 years when he first meets 12-year-old Aline does not help), nor does it ever give us a reason to care about their relationship apart from Lemercier's insipid stares at Marcel in every scene. The romance around which this film supposedly revolves falls victim to that same lack of dramatic tension that the narrative suffers — things just happen. Aline and Guy-Claude have their first kiss, cut to the next scene, it's 15 years later and they're married. A "Star is Born"-inspired final song attempts to give weight to their decades-long love story, as a 40-something Aline mourns her husband's death, but the song is terrible and we have ceased caring.

Perhaps these wild swings and baffling narrative choices were all intentional? Perhaps this was Lemercier calling attention to the overused unreality of digital de-aging in the movie business. Maybe it is camp. Whatever it is, "Aline" is one bizarre cinematic experience.

/Film Rating: 4 out of 10

Read this next: The 14 Greatest Biopics Of The 21st Century

The post Aline Review: The Unofficial Celine Dion Biopic is Officially One of the Most Uncanny Cinematic Experiences appeared first on /Film.

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April 06, 2022 at 10:44PM
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Aline Review: The Unofficial Celine Dion Biopic Is Officially One Of The Most Uncanny Cinematic Experiences | SlashFilm Reviews

https://ift.tt/ikC4SAJ Review: The Unofficial Celine Dion Biopic Is Officially One Of The Most Uncanny Cinematic Experiences | SlashFilm Reviews

"Aline" might truly be one of the most bizarre movies to come out of the arthouse circuit. A biopic that's not a biopic, a movie that manages to gain the rights to the artist's music but refuses to lavish any attention on the beloved songs or how they were made. A movie where the 57-year-old director stars as a Céline Dion surrogate from 5 years old to 40 years old, her face eerily pasted onto a tiny child's body like some kind of malformed hobbit. A movie where things keep happening at a relentless pace, without any semblance of dramatic tension or narrative. Is this camp? Or at least, some strange fever dream from the mind of a Céline Dion superfan?

No, "Aline" is the "unofficial" biopic of Céline Dion, wherein director and star Valerie Lemercier plays Aline Dieu, a Canadian girl with the voice of an angel who gets discovered at the age of 12 and soon rockets to international superstardom. But her success is complicated by her romance with her longtime manager who first discovers her — and is 20 years older than her, too. The film's central romance reflects the real relationship between Dion and her longtime husband René Angélil, also 20 years older than the singer.

"Aline" is a Céline Dion biopic in all but name, and even cheekily nods to the real artist who inspired the film, with Aline's future manager and husband Guy-Claude Kamar (Sylvain Marcel) mistakenly calling her "Céline" before he gets corrected. The film even strictly follows the events of Dion's life, from her humble beginnings in a crowded Quebec family (one of 14 siblings!), to her global superstardom, to her many Vegas residencies. But, perhaps refreshingly though a bit perplexingly, "Aline" isn't much interested in the career and music of Céline Dion. It's only interested in her love story.

The Power Of Love — And Digital De-Aging

The music biopic has never recovered since "Walk Hard" so efficiently and brutally dismantled it. And "Aline," starcrossed ambitions that it has, can't help falling upon those biopic tropes that "Walk Hard" already skewered: the artist towards the end of their career reflecting back on their life, the flashback to their pastoral childhood, the many, many montages. But one thing immediately sets "Aline" apart from the rest, and it may not be for the better: digital de-aging.

For some reason, Lemercier insists on playing Aline throughout her life, first appearing as a 5-year-old (thankfully they spared us a terrifying baby from "Twilight" moment here) singing at her brother's wedding — or rather, her partially hidden face pasted onto the body of a 5-year-old. The obfuscation doesn't help: our first glimpse of Aline is terrifying, like seeing Gollum halfway through his transformation from Andy Serkis to mo-cap creature. Lemercier's performance as Aline is perpetually doe-eyed throughout her life, making her feel like a fan's vague impression of a musical diva and not a person. 

The broad, cartoonish performances of the rest of the cast around her don't help; everyone in the ensemble — apart from Marcel, who appears to be the only actor to have made the choice to play a human — acts like the wandered in off a "Muppets" movie, except they're the Muppets. All of Aline's family members appear to be costumed and made up to be older than their respective ages throughout the film, in what one can only assume is an accidental display of Brechtian theatricality. Increased exposure to the bizarre de-aging effect doesn't make it any less uncanny: try as they might, Aline always looks like she has a 57-year-old woman's face pasted on her body, up through her 30s, and by then, the film's bizarre narrative choices will have taken your attention.

Aline Will Go On...

Another one of the great obstacles of a biopic is crafting some kind of narrative out of someone's life. In a music biopic, it's typically drugs or debauchery or divorce; in show business dramas, it's the rise of stardom and the painful pull of romance (and all the melodrama therein). "Aline" elects to follow the show business route, but for some reason, skips the stardom part and goes straight for the romance — an even stranger choice when you realize that the film, unlike other "unauthorized" music biopics, managed to gain the rights to Dion's most famous songs. There are plenty of montages, but they're used as a way to fast-forward through Aline's biggest career landmarks — the only reference we have to "My Heart Will Go On," one of Dion's biggest international hits and a song the film did get the rights to, is that Aline doesn't like it when she first hears it. Time has no meaning, dramatic tension doesn't exist, and before you know it, Aline is on her second Vegas residency.

But perhaps that's all worth it for the grand and epic romance between Aline and Guy-Claude, right? Not so much. The film never overcomes the discomfort over their age difference (that Marcel looks all of his 57 years when he first meets 12-year-old Aline does not help), nor does it ever give us a reason to care about their relationship apart from Lemercier's insipid stares at Marcel in every scene. The romance around which this film supposedly revolves falls victim to that same lack of dramatic tension that the narrative suffers — things just happen. Aline and Guy-Claude have their first kiss, cut to the next scene, it's 15 years later and they're married. A "Star is Born"-inspired final song attempts to give weight to their decades-long love story, as a 40-something Aline mourns her husband's death, but the song is terrible and we have ceased caring.

Perhaps these wild swings and baffling narrative choices were all intentional? Perhaps this was Lemercier calling attention to the overused unreality of digital de-aging in the movie business. Maybe it is camp. Whatever it is, "Aline" is one bizarre cinematic experience.

/Film Rating: 4 out of 10

Read this next: The 14 Greatest Biopics Of The 21st Century

The post Aline Review: The Unofficial Celine Dion Biopic is Officially One of the Most Uncanny Cinematic Experiences appeared first on /Film.

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April 06, 2022 at 10:44PM

Aline Review: The Unofficial Celine Dion Biopic Is Officially One Of The Most Uncanny Cinematic Experiences | SlashFilm Reviews

"Aline" might truly be one of the most bizarre movies to come out of the arthouse circuit. A biopic that's not a biopic, a movie that manages to gain the rights to the artist's music but refuses to lavish any attention on the beloved songs or how they were made. A movie where the 57-year-old director stars as a Céline Dion surrogate from 5 years old to 40 years old, her face eerily pasted onto a tiny child's body like some kind of malformed hobbit. A movie where things keep happening at a relentless pace, without any semblance of dramatic tension or narrative. Is this camp? Or at least, some strange fever dream from the mind of a Céline Dion superfan?

No, "Aline" is the "unofficial" biopic of Céline Dion, wherein director and star Valerie Lemercier plays Aline Dieu, a Canadian girl with the voice of an angel who gets discovered at the age of 12 and soon rockets to international superstardom. But her success is complicated by her romance with her longtime manager who first discovers her — and is 20 years older than her, too. The film's central romance reflects the real relationship between Dion and her longtime husband René Angélil, also 20 years older than the singer.

"Aline" is a Céline Dion biopic in all but name, and even cheekily nods to the real artist who inspired the film, with Aline's future manager and husband Guy-Claude Kamar (Sylvain Marcel) mistakenly calling her "Céline" before he gets corrected. The film even strictly follows the events of Dion's life, from her humble beginnings in a crowded Quebec family (one of 14 siblings!), to her global superstardom, to her many Vegas residencies. But, perhaps refreshingly though a bit perplexingly, "Aline" isn't much interested in the career and music of Céline Dion. It's only interested in her love story.

The Power Of Love — And Digital De-Aging

The music biopic has never recovered since "Walk Hard" so efficiently and brutally dismantled it. And "Aline," starcrossed ambitions that it has, can't help falling upon those biopic tropes that "Walk Hard" already skewered: the artist towards the end of their career reflecting back on their life, the flashback to their pastoral childhood, the many, many montages. But one thing immediately sets "Aline" apart from the rest, and it may not be for the better: digital de-aging.

For some reason, Lemercier insists on playing Aline throughout her life, first appearing as a 5-year-old (thankfully they spared us a terrifying baby from "Twilight" moment here) singing at her brother's wedding — or rather, her partially hidden face pasted onto the body of a 5-year-old. The obfuscation doesn't help: our first glimpse of Aline is terrifying, like seeing Gollum halfway through his transformation from Andy Serkis to mo-cap creature. Lemercier's performance as Aline is perpetually doe-eyed throughout her life, making her feel like a fan's vague impression of a musical diva and not a person. 

The broad, cartoonish performances of the rest of the cast around her don't help; everyone in the ensemble — apart from Marcel, who appears to be the only actor to have made the choice to play a human — acts like the wandered in off a "Muppets" movie, except they're the Muppets. All of Aline's family members appear to be costumed and made up to be older than their respective ages throughout the film, in what one can only assume is an accidental display of Brechtian theatricality. Increased exposure to the bizarre de-aging effect doesn't make it any less uncanny: try as they might, Aline always looks like she has a 57-year-old woman's face pasted on her body, up through her 30s, and by then, the film's bizarre narrative choices will have taken your attention.

Aline Will Go On...

Another one of the great obstacles of a biopic is crafting some kind of narrative out of someone's life. In a music biopic, it's typically drugs or debauchery or divorce; in show business dramas, it's the rise of stardom and the painful pull of romance (and all the melodrama therein). "Aline" elects to follow the show business route, but for some reason, skips the stardom part and goes straight for the romance — an even stranger choice when you realize that the film, unlike other "unauthorized" music biopics, managed to gain the rights to Dion's most famous songs. There are plenty of montages, but they're used as a way to fast-forward through Aline's biggest career landmarks — the only reference we have to "My Heart Will Go On," one of Dion's biggest international hits and a song the film did get the rights to, is that Aline doesn't like it when she first hears it. Time has no meaning, dramatic tension doesn't exist, and before you know it, Aline is on her second Vegas residency.

But perhaps that's all worth it for the grand and epic romance between Aline and Guy-Claude, right? Not so much. The film never overcomes the discomfort over their age difference (that Marcel looks all of his 57 years when he first meets 12-year-old Aline does not help), nor does it ever give us a reason to care about their relationship apart from Lemercier's insipid stares at Marcel in every scene. The romance around which this film supposedly revolves falls victim to that same lack of dramatic tension that the narrative suffers — things just happen. Aline and Guy-Claude have their first kiss, cut to the next scene, it's 15 years later and they're married. A "Star is Born"-inspired final song attempts to give weight to their decades-long love story, as a 40-something Aline mourns her husband's death, but the song is terrible and we have ceased caring.

Perhaps these wild swings and baffling narrative choices were all intentional? Perhaps this was Lemercier calling attention to the overused unreality of digital de-aging in the movie business. Maybe it is camp. Whatever it is, "Aline" is one bizarre cinematic experience.

/Film Rating: 4 out of 10

Read this next: The 14 Greatest Biopics Of The 21st Century

The post Aline Review: The Unofficial Celine Dion Biopic is Officially One of the Most Uncanny Cinematic Experiences appeared first on /Film.

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All The Old Knives Review: Chris Pine And Thandiwe Newton Are Terrific In This Somewhat Unmemorable Thriller | SlashFilm Reviews

Janus Metz's "All the Old Knives" exists comfortably at the intersection between airport novels and the works of Claire Denis. It is downbeat, emotionally intense, and only slowly reveals its plot — told wildly out of chronological order, often inserting flashbacks inside of flashbacks — over the course of its first 45 minutes. But more than merely obfuscating for its own sake — a pit that lesser thrillers can often fall into — "Old Knives" wisely remains more closely focused on the relationship between Henry (Chris Pine) and Celia (Thandiwe Newton), two ex-CIA agents and former lovers, who decide to reconnect eight years after an attempt to stop a terrorist hijacking when horribly awry. The details of the botched operation are central to the plot (it involves a hostage situation on a plane, a mysterious unseen inside man, and a CIA mole who may or may not be in league with the terrorists) and Metz almost playfully gives the audience facts in a steady drip of information as to just how badly everything went down eight years ago ... but he will always cut back to Pine and Newton, sitting in a posh NorCal wine-country restaurant, trying to size each other up and surmise just how trustworthy this meeting actually is. 

The restaurant scenes are where "Old Knives" displays its most wit. Newton and Pine are experts in creating a relationship between their characters wherein they still have affection, are clearly trying to be friendly, but just as clearly don't trust each other. Once a CIA spook, always a CIA spook. Newton figures out pretty quickly that their reunion has less to do with celebrating old times than investigating, even at this late date, an eight-year-old debacle they were both partially responsible for. Newton and Pine bring the necessary emotional heat to make these scenes function. It helps that we also see their affair in flashbacks, learning the depth of their affection and, importantly, how good the sex was.

The CIA plot is, however, a mere collection of familiar spy tropes wherein stern-faced government agents gather regularly around a dimly lit table, look up at a TV screen displaying a terrorist crisis, and gravely say lines of dialogue like "Okay, what are our options?" If you've ever read an airport novel, the terrorist storyline will feel familiar; even trite. That it's based on an airport novel — by Olen Steinhauer, who also wrote the screenplay — comes as no surprise. The CIA plot is not so much twisty, as it is tangled up all-too-clear, painful memories. 

Obfuscation Is Not A Crime

The opening of "Old Knives" begins in 2020 (although there is no mention of COVID-19) and Henry is tasked by his boss (Laurence Fishburne) to finally close the case on the Flight 127 debacle from 2012. New evidence has pointed to the potential identity of a mole who sold out the CIA, and led to ... well the actual details of Flight 127 are kept hidden. Henry must investigate two old co-workers: The nervous, pub-dwelling Bill (Jonathan Pryce) and his secret ex-girlfriend Celia. This is less about meting out justice as it is the CIA requiring a scapegoat for a bad operation. 

"All the Old Knives" will cut between the events of Flight 127 (and the exploration of potential mole agents, also including Ahd Kamel and David Bedella), the dinner Henry has with Celia, the things Celia and Henry were doing separately on the day of Flight 127 (as mentioned: flashbacks within flashbacks), and an "interflash" to the moments right before Celia and Henry gather to dine, wherein they reveal they might have been setting up more than we initially realize. 

It's a straightforward story told in a convoluted way, although that is not necessarily a weakness. Because the central relationship is so strong — Pine and Newton are genuinely terrific as lovers who love, hate, respect, lust after, and fear one another equally — the screenwriters' metagrobolism serves an emotional function: The true depths of what they survive and what they know about each other deepens every tiny interaction they have as the film progresses. By the end, every word has portent, and Pine and Newton approach every interaction with adult maturity, not action-movie revenge spite. 

Sundown

"All the Old Knives" most notable misstep, however, is its somewhat turgid tone. The pervasive sadness that lingers over the dinner scenes is wholly appropriate, and it penetrates as intensely as the setting sun right outside the window (the dinner lasts into the night). What's missing is a sense of "zip" to the spy sequences. This should be intense, clear, open-handed, and maybe even a little playful. The energy levels are kept aggravatingly low during the CIA scenes, leaving too little to differentiate them from the bookend material. 

The capable photography (by Charlotte Bruus Christensen) only gives us a few visual hints as to the different timelines we are visiting, and the incapable score (by Rebekka Karijord and Jon Ekstrand) fills the audience's brains with flavorless strings and melodramatic chords. "All the Old Knives" might have benefitted from flat, un-dynamic shots, and a few moments of strategic silence. 

Had "Old Knives" managed to function as a corker of a spy thriller in addition to being an intense conversational drama, it could have emerged as something special. At the end of the day, however, one will walk away satisfied with the characters and moved by a bleak and tragic ending, but left with little to carry in their memory. Ironically, a film about the painful suspicions of the past and the aching nature of memory is largely unmemorable. 

/Film Rating: 6.5 out of 10

Read this next: The 18 Best Action Movie Actors Ranked

The post All the Old Knives Review: Chris Pine and Thandiwe Newton Are Terrific In This Somewhat Unmemorable Thriller appeared first on /Film.

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New Doctor Strange TV Spot Strengthens Connections to WandaVision Characters #wanitaxigo

Ambulance Review: Michael Bay Goes Full Bayhem With A Feature-Length Chase And A Wild Jake Gyllenhaal Performance | SlashFilm Reviews

"Ambulance" is a Michael Bay movie. For some folks, that's the only sentence of this review that matters. By now, Bay's ultra-shiny, ultra-chaotic style is so firmly established that you know what you're going to get — and you're likely either on board with that by now, or you think Bay is everything wrong with modern cinema. Me? I'm somewhere in the middle. I think Bay has made some true stinkers. I also think he's a genuine auteur, and when he gets it right (see: "The Rock," "Pain & Gain"), he can deliver a film that's wholly unique, warts and all. Bay, for his part, has no qualms about who he is or what he does (and why should he? Critics aside, his films usually make major bank). He is a filmmaker who knows what he likes, just as fetishistic about his cinematic obsessions as someone like Quentin Tarantino. "This is what I like," Bay shouts through a megaphone at his audience. "You can like it too, or you can buzz off." 

With "Ambulance," Bay continues to celebrate all-things-Bay, going full-Bayhem with a feature-length chase where certain characters will pause to quote lines from the Michael Bay movie "The Rock" or reference the Michael Bay movie "Bad Boys." That's right: Michael Bay exists within the world of this Michael Bay movie. And he's making more Michael Bay movies in that world. It's ridiculously meta. It's a snake swallowing its own tail. It's kind of great. 

Bay ups the ante here by bringing in drone cameras — and the director doesn't use drones like modern-day documentary filmmakers to simply get aerial establishing shots, oh no. He has his drones swoop, and swirl, and twirl, and flip. They buzz through open windows or abandoned buildings like flying insects; they dive-bomb the scenery like birds of prey. It's like Bay got a neat new toy and he just can't stop playing with it. Again, the unbridled Bayness of it all will either click with you or send you heading for the exit. Perhaps it speaks to the sorry state of modern movies, or maybe I'm just starved for some sort of entertaining distraction, but as I sat watching "Ambulance" in a Dolby theater, and felt my comfy seat vibrate with every explosion and burst of gunfire, I couldn't help but get swept up in it all. "Ambulance" does exactly what it sets out to do. Take it or leave it. 

Before the big, feature-length chase begins, "Ambulance" introduces us to its cast of characters. There's ex-soldier Will (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II), a stand-up guy trying to get insurance money to come through to pay for experimental surgery for his sick wife (Moses Ingram). Then there's Will's brother Danny (Jake Gyllenhaal), who seems to have his fingers in various illegal pies all over Los Angeles. We learn that Danny's family took the orphaned Will in as a boy, and while a close bond formed between the adoptive brothers, they didn't exactly have an idyllic childhood. It's revealed that Danny and Will's father was a psychopathic bank robber, and he tried to pass his criminal trade on to his sons. Danny took to the idea — he's robbed 38 banks in the last year, we're told! — but Will did not. Desperate for money now, Will turns to Danny for help, expecting a loan. Danny makes a counter-offer: Will should come help rob a bank of $32 million. Ideally, Will would walk away from this. But then we wouldn't have a movie. So he goes along, swept up by his brother's manic enthusiasm. Meanwhile, elsewhere in Los Angeles, we meet Cam Thompson (Eiza González), an EMT who is described — and I'm not making this up — as "the best paramedic in town." Soon, these characters will collide.  

Gyllenhaal Steals The Show

González is appropriately fiery and tough as Cam, and Abdul-Mateen II is stoic and sympathetic as Will. We like these characters, especially Will — it would be easy to judge him, since he's ultimately a criminal who puts lives in danger. But Abdul-Mateen II carries himself with such dignity and poise that we accept his actions without question. But make no mistake: "Ambulance" belongs to Gyllenhaal. The actor has entered an interesting phase in his career. After trying on the traditional leading man costume and finding it didn't fit well, Gyllenhaal has embraced weirder and wilder roles. 

Here, it seems like Bay gave him free rein to go nuts, and that's exactly what Gyllenhaal does, spitting his lines out in a motor-mouth fashion that seems to suggest he's improvising the dialogue as he goes rather than reading from a script. He's frantic and sweaty, eyes wide, cracking jokes that don't really make sense. When his sweater gets sprayed by a fire extinguisher he angrily yells, "It's cashmere!" He behaves at all times as if he's just snorted the entire mountain of cocaine that sat on Al Pacino's desk at the end of "Scarface." If Bay's Tilt-A-Whirl filming style didn't thrill us, Gyllenhaal's performance would pick up the slack. In fact, the performance might be too successful, because it slowly becomes clear that we're supposed to think of Danny as a bad guy — and make no mistake, he does bad things — but gosh, it's just so much fun to watch Gyllenhaal have fun. 

As you might have guessed, the bank robbery goes horribly wrong. The rest of the crew is killed, and Danny and Will end up hijacking an ambulance to get away. And wouldn't you know it, Cam is in this ambulance! And so is a rookie cop (Jackson White) who has been shot by Will during the robbery. Now, in true "Speed" fashion, the ambulance rockets along through Los Angeles, refusing to stop, and the cops are in hot pursuit. Leading the charge is an aw-shucks lawman, played by a memorable Garret Dillahunt. He's the type of character willing to halt a chase in order to protect his beloved dog, who happens to be in the back seat of one of the pursuing cop cars. 

More and more characters keep showing up to complicate things, and almost none of them is fleshed out very well. The script, by Chris Fedak, is often quite clunky, and there are countless instances where automated dialog replacement, or looping, has been added so characters (always off-screen) can helpfully summarize what the hell is happening. Is someone's motivation not making sense? No matter! An ADR line will fix that up in a jiffy! And for all Bay's action prowess, he does have a tendency to get too close, rendering several moments visually indecipherable.

And yet ... "Ambulance" still works, because for all its flaws, it never lets up. It never really gives us a moment to stop and think about those flaws as we watch. That will come later, after we've left the confines of the theater. But as we watch, we're lost in the moment. Whenever a movie shows me something that seems new, I perk up. And "Ambulance" has that, in more than one regard. Not just with the way Bay uses drones, but also with the staging of several scenes themselves. The most notable is a bloody, darkly funny moment where Cam and Will have to perform life-saving surgery on the cop, literally cutting open and reaching into his stomach to pull out his spleen — which bursts in a fountain of blood! Since Cam isn't a surgeon, she calls her ex-boyfriend, a doctor. He, in turn, calls two surgeons out golfing. And soon, three doctors are video calling into the ambulance to watch the high-speed surgery unfold and offer comical guidance. I'm not saying "Ambulance" is original — hell, it's a remake of a Danish film from 2005. But I have never seen a sequence like this before, and to watch it here felt fresh and new. And that's a feeling I'm always chasing. So thank you, Michael Bay. I mean that. "Ambulance" is unlikely to convert those who loathe Michael Bay and all he creates. But if you're on board, you're in for one hell of a ride.

/Film Rating: 7 out of 10

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The post Ambulance Review: Michael Bay Goes Full Bayhem With a Feature-Length Chase and a Wild Jake Gyllenhaal Performance appeared first on /Film.

https://ift.tt/ICgcoFm Chris Evangelista