Review: Longlegs

Longlegs is a movie that works in the moment. Scenes are soaked in dread; the whole point is that what you're watching is scary right now. Some horror movies get bigger as you consider their implications. This one is happy to provide 90-odd minutes of skin-crawling tension.

Lee Harker (Maika Monroe) is the kind of hyper-focused, socially awkward detective familiar from decades of film and television. New to the FBI, her instincts (psychic or not) during a door-to-door search prove sharp enough to get her bumped up to assisting veteran agent Carter (Blair Underwood) on a very cold case that just might be heating up. Her partner on the search ended up dead; her instincts might not be coming from a mutually beneficial place. 

The case involves a string of family murder-suicides seemingly sparked by strange coded letters sent by a figure known as Longlegs (Nicolas Cage). Nothing in the case seems to add up. Harker cracks the code but the messages are just the usual taunts, Longlegs himself is a creepy freak but his role seems less clear as events progress, the sole survivor (Kiernan Shipka) is fresh out of her coma but less than helpful and each new clue (what's going on with the giant dolls?) only muddies the waters.

This is clearly riffing on a number of classic serial killer films - Seven and Silence of the Lambs come to mind - though this eventually slips sideways into a slightly different genre. It's all retro-stylings (the film is set in the 90s), chilly rural landscapes, dingy houses and big winter coats. The weather forecast says "ominous foreboding".

Monroe's earnest but slightly distant performance only adds to the tension, playing the kind of character you know will keep going past the point where someone more easily unsettled (that is, most of humanity) would be running like a maniac. Maybe blame her mother (Alicia Witt), who, it's increasingly clear, has issues of her own.

As the story progresses the bad vibes grow. The FBI, it becomes clear, is an unsafe space; even when they get the job done, nobody's sure it's the right job. Writer-director Oz Perkins isn't telling a story where all the pieces fall into place. They just fall on the floor in a pattern that's unsettling without ever being fully satisfying.

Cage is only in the film for a handful of scenes, though they're memorable ones. It's surprising to realise his brand of off-kilter performance hasn't been harnessed for straight-out horror earlier. He's often left audiences thinking "what the hell am I watching?". This time hell might be the answer as well as the question.

- Anthony Morris

Review: Fly Me to the Moon

There's a lot going on in Fly Me to the Moon, possibly too much for one movie. Part romantic comedy, part caper movie, part vague gesture towards a rare part of history people still feel good about, it's largely held together by good old fashioned movie magic. Or in layman's terms, here's two good looking people, hopefully you'll want to watch at least one of them.

Kelly Jones (Scarlett Johansson) is wowing them in the sexist world of 60s advertising, but her ability to effortlessly con her clients suggests something a little darker. Which is exactly what the Nixon White House - in the form of Moe Burkus (Woody Harrelson) - likes about her. So here's the gig: head south to Florida, show up at NASA, and help turn a PR mess into a political asset just in time for man to land on the moon.

Meanwhile, heading up NASA's efforts is square-jawed former fighter pilot Cole Davis (Channing Tatum), who you'd think would be great publicity but after the tragic deaths of three astronauts on a mission he was in charge of, he's all about keeping his head down and getting the job done. 

He has a meet-cute with Kelly before he knows who she is, so his loathing of publicity is tempered by his attraction to her. She, on the other hand, knows exactly who he is and likes what she sees. What could possibly get in the way of this romance, especially once Cole realises that her people skills can help smooth the bumpy political road ahead? Guess he better not find out that Burkus has secretly ordered her to create a fake moon landing in case Cole screws the real one up.

At times it's hard to know if this is a romance with a caper movie mixed in, or a caper movie with a romantic subplot. The various political and PR hijinxs are never less than entertaining, but they don't always feel essential; as fictional backstory for an actual event, the stakes couldn't be lower - unless what's really on the line is Kelly and Cole's relationship, which this takes a little too long to focus on.

Still, the tone is enjoyably light, the Mad Men-era 60s vibe remains both stylish and smart, and Johansson is having a lot of fun as a fast-talking career gal constantly charming all and sundry. Tatum is playing the kind of stiff who everyone likes because he gets flustered rather than mad; he's the passive partner, his wound over his past the main obstacle to be overcome.

The final third brings it all together as the traditional rom-com dynamic is revealed (the couple comes together, but one has a secret that will tear them apart) and then woven into the caper (how do our heroes show the world the real moon landing?). The gags speed up, the tension builds, and some real stakes come into play.

This could have lost half an hour, but a slow start's to blame. Much like the moon landing itself, it's the end of the journey that makes the long trip worthwhile.

- Anthony Morris

Review: Twisters

Twisters is basically the platonic ideal of a sequel. It's the same film all over again, only now it's the film you remember rather than the actual first film which, after all, did have its faults. Light on the story but heavy on the destruction, it knows you're not here to think about actual science - unless it's the kind of science you can do in your mom's barn.

Five years ago, Kate Carter (Daisy Edgar-Jones) saw her college buddies dragged up into the sky when an experiment requiring them to get too close to a tornado went wrong. Now a shadow of her former self, she works in weather in tornado-free (for now) New York - but when old buddy Javi (Anthony Ramos) shows up needing the best ever tornado predictor ever, how can she say no?

Once back out in the field (literally) she soon discovers that Javi and his slick corporate team are, well, a slick corporate team. Their main rivals are Tyler Owens (Glen Powell) and his YouTube crew of "tornado wranglers" who race around setting off fireworks inside twisters and sell t-shirts with his face on them. They're loud and crude, but Kate soon finds herself falling for their charms... which is handy, because who's that sinister-looking real estate mogul financing Javi's data-gathering efforts?

The whole film is so lightweight it feels like it could fly away in a slight breeze, which is a big part of its appeal. Aside from the opening - which comes very close to an "a tornado killed my family, now I want revenge" kind of set-up - nothing involving the characters risks cranking up any serious tension. There's slightly more than hints of a love triangle (in a heavier film you'd have Javi marked for death as a loser in both love and staying alive), the "we've got to help these people, not exploit them" subplot is mostly just shades of light grey, and everyone aside from a few obvious jerks just... gets along.

That's because all the real drama comes from the killer tornadoes wreaking havoc across the USA, and this repeatedly and effectively points out that being anywhere near one of these things is a very bad idea. There's nothing quite as memorable as the first film's flying cow (RIP) and even the firenado is something we've seen before, but these sequences are always effective whether they're going for awe-inspiring or terrifying.

At times a bit more drama might not have gone astray. We're introduced to a group of orange rain-poncho-wearing "tourists" who you'd expect to get torn apart at some stage, but nope. By the time Maura Tierney turns up as Kate's warm-hearted, no-nonsense mom, it's clear the real appeal here is just hanging out with a collection of likable all-action nerds who get their kicks looking at clouds and weather maps.

Oh, and seeing a lot of middle America get ripped asunder and hurled into the sky. At one point we see a star-spangled woman rising around a rodeo carrying a giant American flag; it feels like the film-makers missed a trick not having her soar off into the heavens with it as an (inadvertent) sail.

- Anthony Morris

Review: The Exorcism

Heading into The Exorcism, you'd be forgiven for thinking this was a follow-up to Russell Crowe's recent The Pope's Exorcist. There Crowe played a real-life priest and occasional exorcist; here he's playing an actor who's just been cast as an exorcist in a remake of an iconic movie involving priests and demonic possession. The movie's real title is never mentioned. Guess these days there's a fair few of them to choose from.

Anthony Miller (Crowe) flushed his career and his family down the toilet years ago. Now he's sober and he's trying to get both back. His career through a comeback role as an exorcist, his daughter Lee (Ryan Simpkins) by having her stay with him after she was kicked out of boarding school.

Miller is a troubled man, and his childhood experiences as an altar boy have left him skittish around the church. But he needs the gig, and despite a lot of reluctance from the money men, the director (Adam Goldberg) signs him for the role - though his motivational methods might be a little too effective in stirring up Miller's past.

Oh yeah, and the main reason why Miller got the role was because the big name they previously cast died. On set. While going through his lines for a scene where he confronts a demonic force. 

Now Miller's sleepwalking, lights are falling from the ceiling, his performance is bad in an increasingly unsettling way, and the whole situation is giving off a very creepy vibe. Is it merely Miller's personal demons brought back by the pressures of work, or will Lee and the film's religious advisor Father Conor (David Hyde Pierce) have to face down a demon of the more literal kind?

We all know how exorcism movies work, and while this (which was filmed back in late 2019) is initially a slow burn, it does eventually get around to delivering the sudden soundtrack stings and casual blasphemy. A more interesting development here is having Miller be the source of a few of the better jump scares; one of Crowe's big strengths in this stage of his career is that he can just as easily be the good guy or the bad, and this makes good use of that ambivalence.

Director and co-writer John Joshua Miller is the son of Jason Miller, who played the priest who goes out the window in the original Exorcist. He brings a satisfying level of dread to a number of individual scenes, which helps gloss over the way the overall story doesn't really hold together. Presumably "I was possessed by a demon" is a legitimate defense when it comes to being charged with murder in the US justice system.

There's next to nothing new here (somewhat intentionally, considering the classic its riffing on), but Crowe drags the whole thing over the line through sheer force of will. It's the kind of film where it feels like everyone else turned up just because they knew he'd be there; Sam Worthington, who basically has an extended cameo as Miller's adoring co-star, almost certainly signed on just to spend time across from Crowe. And who could blame him? Even when Crowe's deliberately acting badly, he's still good.

So yes, the story loses focus here and there, and a few scenes stretch credibility beyond breaking point - like the time when someone goes full Satanic crabwalk during filming and the entire crew doesn't quit on the spot. And yet: the power of Crowe compels you. 

- Anthony Morris

Review: Bad Boys: Ride or Die

Just look how far the Bad Boys have come. When they first burst onto our screens in a wave of legally dubious carnage, the buddy cop dynamic between Mike Lowrey (Will Smith) and Marcus Burnett (Martin Lawrence) was your typical loose cannon vs anxious guy with something to lose. Now, well over 25 years later, they're both just too old for this shit. And in Bad Boys:Ride or Die, the shit has once again hit the fan.

Even a franchise this free-wheeling knows action doesn't mean much when there's nothing at stake. So first, some character development: Mike's settling down and getting married to Christine (Melanie Liburd), so he's finally got something to lose. Marcus just had a heart attack on the dance floor where a vision of their cranky dead boss Captain Howard (Joe Pantoliano) told him it's not his time to die, so now he thinks he's invulnerable. As role reversals go it's no Freaky Friday, but it'll do.

Speaking of the late Captain Howard, he's the big plot driver this time around. Seems he's been framed by the evil cartel from the last film, angering his devoted US Marshall daughter (Rhea Seehorn) who doesn't want to believe it. In reality, he was secretly investigating corruption inside his department. It turns out the only way to clear his name is for the Boys to go on the run, team-up with Mike's son and cartel killer Armando (Jacob Scipio) and trash half of Florida.

Returning directors Adil & Bilall (they took over the franchise from Michael Bay with Bad Boys For Life, maintaining his hyperbolic style in a near-seamless fashion) know that too much is never enough when you're dealing with the Bad Boys. It's probably not humanly possible for someone to enjoy everything going on here, but with so much going on you're bound to find something you like.

Probably not the comedy though, which rarely gets above painful until the second half and even then relies an awful lot on the goodwill Lawrence and Smith bring to their characters. And while it's tempting to consider this a last chance for Smith to redeem himself after his Oscar antics, his laying low since then has largely done the hard work for him - and here he's often surprisingly subdued, while Lawrence takes full advantage of Marcus's fearlessness to crank things up.

And making some noise is probably a good idea, because this is so over-stuffed (old characters are back! New characters are important! The action is dizzying!) eventually it starts to take on the relentless feel of the engine drone from one of the often-present helicopters - but like a trip on one of those copters, it's always a wild ride.

The big crowd-pleasing twist here is that Marcus' son-in-law Reggie (played by Dennis McDonald), who's been a one-minor-note-joke since Bad Boys II, finally gets to take out some trash on his own. If Mike and Marcus are getting too old to be boys, at least the next generation now get to be (equally lethal) men.

- Anthony Morris

Review: Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga

Mad Max movies falter when they slow down. It's a series built on speed; characters might talk about what they've lost, but the past is the past and they're hurtling through a future that's crumbling around them. Furiosa doesn't exactly slam on the brakes, but as a companion piece to 2015's Fury Road - which restarted the Mad Max franchise after close to three decades dormant - it's largely taking us to places we've already been.

Fury Road sketched in Furiosa's backstory. Taken from the Green Place of Many Mothers as a child, she grew up in the Wasteland, rising to a position of power in the brutal Citadel run by Immortan Joe. This fills in the gaps, sometimes in ways that honor the franchise's tradition of full throttle storytelling, other times in ways more familiar to prequel fans.

The opening sequence where Furiosa (played as a child by Alyla Browne) is snatched, raced across the desert to the camp of Dementus (Chris Hemsworth, hamming it up) then almost saved by her pursuing mother is a breathless, thrilling beginning. Things slow down when Dementus' horde stumble upon the Citadel and discover Joe (Lachy Hulme) and his familiar henchmen are no easy mark; warring tribes are slower and more crushing than speeding individuals, and while the violence we expect in the Wasteland continues, the storytelling shifts into epic mode, with alliances and sieges and betrayals.

Through this Furiosa (now played by Anna Taylor-Joy) comes of age, dodges one fate and embraces another. Hiding as a mechanic, she plans her escape; War Rig driver Praetorian Jack (Tom Burke) becomes her mentor and her guide. Meanwhile, Dementus is proving an unstable element in the fragile ecosystem that sustains the Citadel. War is coming, and Furiosa's plans for escape will be overtaken by her desire for revenge.

Director George Miller hasn't slowed down with age. There's a number of good action sequences here, and one excellent one. But the breathless pace of the best of the Mad Max series is absent, and revisiting familar settings and characters means this often lacks the confronting weirdness the franchise is so good at. A fleeting static cameo from a familiar Road Warrior got a cheer; someone being dragged down into a desert sinkhole was a nice call back to the deadly sand dunes of Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome.

But the limited settings also limits the film's horizons. At times the Wasteland almost threatens to become safe, a well worn path - though the physical setting for the hooning around (this was filmed in the Australian outback, whereas Fury Road was filmed in Africa) is more varied and striking than in the previous film, and used to better effect.

Taylor-Joy is more fevered and feral than Charlize Theron's Furiosa, a woman desperate to regain what she's lost. Burke plays a guide to what she'll become, a rare character with his head on straight; everyone else is ruthless or insane, preferably both if they want to survive, and Miller's retained his eye for uniquely Australian faces (a dusty musician Tim Rogers turns up early).

Fury Road was a relentless onslaught of escalating and outlandish action. This can't reach those heights; it's probably wise that it takes another path. At close to two and a half hours, it's an epic striving for a different kind of overload. If it doesn't fully succeed, it still goes hard enough to skid over the line.

- Anthony Morris

Review: Fremont

Donya (Anaita Wali Zada) is having trouble sleeping. She's an Afghan refugee - she was a translator for the US Army - who now lives in Fremont, California. She works in a fortune cookie factory, lives in a building with other refugees, eats alone at a restaurant where soap operas constantly play, and doesn't think she has PTSD. 

The rhythms of Donya's life are small ones, and Iranian-American director Babak Jalali's film takes its time immersing the viewer in them. The men around her are usually older and keep their distance, while her workmate and friend Joanna (Hilda Schmelling) has a lot going on. Donya's fine with keeping people at a remove.

The she pushes her way into the practice of Dr Anthony (Gregg Turkington) because she wants sleeping tablets. When he asks about her past and her situation, her facade doesn't exactly crack - and it isn't really a facade - but she does start to realise that she may need more out of life than the bare bones she's been gnawing on.

Meanwhile at the cookie factory, a major upheaval. The person writing the fortunes has died (as the boss says, "she was too old to be thinking about the future") and Donya takes on the job. Dr Anthony thinks this might be a way for her to express her thoughts and feelings, though she'll have to make them "cookie friendly". Taking his advice maybe a little too close to heart, she puts her phone number on a fortune and sends it out into the world.

Deceptively deadpan and shot in often striking black and white, it's a story both intimate and wide-ranging. Told in a minor key, there's big feelings and high stakes here if you look. Donya's blind shot at connection puts her job in jeopardy, while also bringing her in contact with Daniel (The Bear's Jeremy Allen White) and a world - or maybe just a slightly ajar door - of passion and romance.

Despite it's at times placid tone, the brutal mechanisms of our world grind away just out of sight. Donya doesn't explain her past, but the outline alone suggests horrors. Looked at one way, her job is repetitive and crushing, her life outside it threadbare. 

But there's solace and comfort there too, as sorting and packing cookies creates a soothing repetition. When she's offered the chance to be creative, she grabs it with both hands and uses it for her own gain. The company's too; who better to write cookie fortunes than a dreamer?

- Anthony Morris