The new Lego movie is yet another example of Vancouver’s rise as a hot bed of visual effects in the movies. Much of its animation was done right here at a company called Animal Logic. Almost all of Spider-Man: Into the Spider Verse was done here at Sony Imageworks.
If that part of the industry interests you check out this year’s SPARK FX conference starting today and on through the weekend at Emily Carr on 1st Avenue. People who actually worked on films like Spider-Man, Mary Poppins, Venom and the upcoming Alita will tell you what they do and how. There’s an intriguing session on the invisible VFX of Roma and even a look back at Forrest Gump. Check the website: http://sparkfx.ca
If you're anywhere near Powell River check out the very good and ambitious line up for the film festival that starts today. It runs all week until the 17th and you can find information here: https://www.prfilmfestival.ca/
And these are the new films in Vancouver:
Lego Movie 2: The Second Part: 3 stars
What Men Want: 2
Cold Pursuit: 3
The Prodigy: 3
Oscar Shorts: Animated, Live Action and Documentary
THE LEGO MOVIE 2: THE SECOND PART: The first one, exactly five years ago, was as its song proclaims: “awesome”. But looking back at my notes on the two that followed I see I had exactly the same reaction to them as I have to this new one. They’ve tried too hard to make it hip and lost the charm. We get a flurry of speedy jokes and that’s good. Not many animated films for kids reference The Matrix, encounter Bruce Willis in an air duct and give us a Lego figure of Ruth Bader Ginsberg. But this one also has Batman (Will Arnett) repeating himself, repeatedly, a forced story line and other signs that some of the inspiration behind the lunacy has withered.
It’s a dual-level adventure again. At home, sister is intruding on brother’s Lego playing with her Duplo bricks. Mom (Maya Rudolph) threatens “ourmomageddon” if they can’t get along and their squabbling plays out as a parallel outer space fantasy. Duplo invaders have turned his Bricksburg into a Mad Max-like wasteland. Their general brings the whole gang, including Lucy, Wyldstyle and the ever-optimistic Emmet to her home planet where Queen Watevra Wa’Nabi (Tiffany Haddish) wants to force Batman to marry her. Emmet is under pressure to stop being so nice and become a warrior. These harsh times call for it, he’s told by a future version of himself. Chris Pratt voices both and there are sly references to his other movies. The jokes are fun and the themes of sibling co-operation and the true nature of masculinity are worthwhile. It just feels so deliberately manufactured though. Visually it’s wonderful with beautiful animation, much of it done here in Vancouver. (Dunbar, Scotiabank, Marine Gateway and many suburban theatres) 3 out of 5
WHAT MEN WANT: Was anybody calling for this remake of a bad Mel Gibson movie? What Women Want, a big hit for him 19 years ago, was about a man pressed to ditch his low opinion of women. This new one starring Taraji P. Henson, has both a gender and racial switch and is sadly very low-class, loud, frantic and surprisingly lewd. In one scene she’s dancing wildly with a large inflatable penis in her hands. It’s the extreme, but not alone in this story ostensibly about women’s equality and empowerment.
Henson plays a sports agent who is unfairly passed over for a promotion. A girls’-night-out, a cup of tea from a mysterious psychic (Erykah Badu) and a knock on the head after falling down with that balloon penis, gives her the power to hear what men are thinking. In this witless movie, the men don’t think much that’s interesting at all. Mostly wise-cracks, one-liners and self-obsessed notions. But it does give Henson an advantage, notably at a poker game where Mark Cuban and Shaquille O’Neill are also playing, And in the office, where she sets her sights on signing a basketball prospect and thereby proving her worth. The message is conflicted though. A bit of deception gets her more than her mind-reading. It does enable her to disrupt a wedding though and thereby start a bunch of women fighting. She doesn’t learn much about men. Most are jerks anyway. And sex? Twice, when she’s on top, it’s not good. Third time, when he’s on top, it works fine. What does that say? There are laughs but not much logic. (International Village and suburban theatres) 2 out of 5
COLD PURSUIT: Liam Neeson, the star of so many movies (and, unfortunately, recent interview quotes) about revenge, shows he was the perfect guy to take over this re-make. He’s just as dour as Stellan Skarsgård was in the Norwegian original and just as driven to avenge a son’s death at the hands of drug dealers. He plays a snowplow operator in Colorado (Fernie, B.C. stands in for it) whose chief method of showing emotion is to drive angry. He does a lot of that, on his way to tracking down to kill anybody working for the local crime boss. He’s played by Tom Bateman. Way over-played, actually.
He’s nicknamed Viking. There are guys in his gang with names like Speedo, Dante and Limbo. Like in the original, made by the same director, Hans Petter Moland, there’s a subtle veneer of black comedy over the grim proceedings here. The crime boss is an adamant vegan. Two local cops discuss community policing and the complexity of enforcing the drug laws when marijuana has been legalized. Every thug who is killed is then identified with an on-screen information slide. This is not your usual revenge thriller. Certainly not when a war breaks out between this gang and a crew of local indigenous drug dealers. Tom Jackson plays their leader and with great dignity spouts lines like “I will have blood for blood. A son for a son.” It looks like a Taken knock-off until you get in and find a lot more there. (Scotiabank, Marine Gateway and suburban theatres) 3 out of 5
THE PRODIGY: As horror movies go, this one is safe, mild even. But it tingles with creepiness and a few changes in mood. Remember those bad-child films like The Omen? It plays like one early on. Then there’s a bit of the familiar Exorcist vibe here. And finally a supernatural mental health thriller forcing impossible decisions to be made and ultimately leaving us wondering what happened. It’s a good ride if you’re willing to accept ambiguity.
A killer is shot by police; a baby is born. Same time, different place, not explained until much later. The baby develops fast, aces I.Q. tests when he’s eight, squashes a spider, hits a kid at school with a monkey wrench and injures a babysitter by luring her to step on a glass shard. Parents will cringe at this section because devious, possibly malevolent, children are disturbing. He offers only a minimum of information to his mom (Taylor Shilling) but a recording of some weird muttering while he’s asleep and analysis by a child psychologist (Colm Feore) reveals what’s going on. The boy is possessed through reincarnation. Why and how to stop it leads to a fairly gripping search. The film is well-paced and full of dread and atmosphere. Jackson Robert Scott does adult-level acting through the boy’s many moods. (International Village and suburban theatres) 3 out of 5
OSCAR SHORTS: Of all the Academy Award contenders they’re the hardest to catch up with. Short animations, documentaries and live action dramas aren’t played in theatres very often. But starting today and through the week at the VanCity Theatre you can see all 15 contenders. They’re grouped into three programs and I cover them all here.
ANIMATED:
With a local candidate high in the running, I know which one I would favor. Luckily I don’t have to look like a homer. ANIMAL BEHAVIOUR by Alison Snowden and David Fine simply rates as the best of the five in my mind. It is fast and witty and gently acerbic about group therapy. (The filmmakers will be at the Sunday afternoon screening for a Q&A).
BAO is a possible rival with its slick but sentimental story about a Chinese mom recalling her child’s early years. It’s a Pixar film by former Torontonian Domee Shi.
WEEKENDS is set in Toronto, where Trevor Jimenez used to live and shows a young boy shuttled back and forth between his divorced parents. That’s all. Nice drawing but thin content.
LATE AFTERNOON, from Ireland, has an old lady recalling her life and ONE SMALL STEP from the U.S. has a man recalling his daughter’s growing up by keying on the shoes he made for her.
Two also-rans are included and the whole package plays four afternoons, plus Wed evening and next Saturday morning.
LIVE ACTION: This is the category with the controversial re-creation of a horrible British murder case. Two boys, each only 10 years old, killed a two-year-old toddler in Liverpool in 1993. This Irish film, called DETAINMENT, tries to uncover why they did it. It doesn’t. The boys deny personal culpability in the police interview, while their parents watch with alarm. Strong acting but little insight or even reason for the film.
I favor MADRE, a powerful film from Spain in which a mother gets a distressing call from her son. Dad took him to be beach and is now nowhere in sight. High tension.
SKIN is a gripping portrait of a red-neck’s racism in the American south. He teaches it to his son too and suffers the consequences.
MARGUERITE and FAUVE, both from Quebec, are weaker in comparison. The former has an old woman musing about lesbianism. In the latter, two boys get into trouble in a gravel pit.
This group is on until next Saturday, mostly in the afternoons.
DOCUMENTARY: Racism, fascism, women fighting for rights, refugees in peril, death. They’re all here. Luckily all five of these docs are very good.
A NIGHT AT THE GARDEN shows a 1939 Nazi rally in New York that was attended by 20,000 people. BLACK SHEEP has the memories of one young man from Nigeria about the virulent racism he endured in England. LIFEBOAT lets us watch a German non-profit group rescue migrants from their rickety and overloaded boats in the Mediterranean. Some tell their stories and Captain Jon Castle, a veteran of Greenpeace campaigns, explains why we have to help them.
END GAME is all about death. Doctors, nurses and social workers at a palliative care facility in San Francisco work with terminally-ill patients to “live as well as possible, as long as possible.” It’s not easy to watch even with a doctor’s reassurance that “wherever we’re going, ain’t so bad.”
Finally, there’s PERIOD. END OF SENTENCE, a likely winner. Women in India, shunned during menstruation, even banned from temples, are fighting the stigma with education and sanitary pads that they manufacture. Empowerment follows.
Screens afternoons today, Saturday, Monday and Thursday.