The Strangers: Prey at Night (2018)

½ star
Despicably pointless and stupid, The Strangers: Prey at Night is not only a complete rehash of the first movie, but it is a maddening decent into the absolute pits of horror screenwriting. The script features everything from moody teens to poor decision-making to ridiculous exhibitions of pop music, which are presented to us in a manner that suggests a complete ignorance of basic human behavior, both in front of and behind the camera. That this mess was directed by Johannes Roberts, who made the superior 47 Meters Down, is mystifying. Perhaps the real culprit here is co-writer Bryan Bertino, the writer and director of the original. His narrative structure and idiotic plotting indicate that he simply had no more good or creative ideas for telling this story yet proceeded anyway due to the low budget and high likelihood for profit.

Rebound (2005)

★½

Rebound looks every bit like a way to receive a fast influx of cash. If you're a screenwriter and need to pay your debts right now, lest the loan sharks break your legs, then all you have to do is write a kiddie sports movie about a weak underdog team that improves under the leadership of a new coach, preferably one that doesn't really want to be there. Just about any studio is willing to give this kind of story the green light, because it features a flawed hero who can do a quick turnaround and give the false impression that he grew up. Hire a name actor to play him, and then populate the rest of the cast with unknowns.

Days of Being Wild (1991)

★★★

Wong Kar-Wai loves his characters, so much so that he would rather watch them grow and develop rather than insert them into actions scenes or other fantastical situations. He writes his characters with a complex set of emotions and sees where that leads them. He doesn’t betray them. He charts their course, and the destination may or may not be desirable. We can see this in Chungking Express, or his American production My Blueberry Nights. They can be deeply flawed, passionate, lonely, funny, optimistic and/or cruel. In Days of Being Wild, one of Wong’s breakout films, his characters possess the less desirable of these traits. Even with characters who are disagreeable or contemptible, there is something about them that yearns for goodness, a recognition of these flaws and an attempt to purge them, or at least tame them. Success is not guaranteed in a Wong Kar-Wai film.

The Dark Crystal (1982)

★★★

The Dark Crystal is such a triumph of special effects and puppetry that it’s easy to ignore some of the weaknesses in its plot. Jim Henson dazzles with his creations and his imagination, but the bigger task of leading a large crew to bring his characters to life must have been exhausting. He exceeds all expectations. There is such a wide variety of creatures present here that he surpasses every other production in which has been involved. The worlds of the Muppets and Fraggles don’t compare to The Dark Crystal in terms of puppet execution.

Death Wish (2018)

★★

I don’t care if someone wants to remake a movie, just as long as the writers and directors can give me a reason why the movie was made other than to extract money from my wallet. It’s a waste of time when a remake uses the title and notoriety of an earlier movie while adding nothing new to the story. Case in point: Death Wish, a remake of the Charles Bronson original from 1974. That director Eli Roth is involved in this update isn’t surprising. What is surprising is that, given his devotion to horror and b-movies, he doesn’t generate much interest in the story. Whether it’s Hostel or The Green Inferno, we can look at an Eli Roth movie and know that it’s his. Not so with Death Wish, which has a predictable plot and contains laughable plot developments.

Annihilation (2018)

★★★½

There’s a moment towards the end of Annihilation when biologist Lena (Natalie Portman) enters unknown territory to face whatever lies ahead. Everything up to that point has defied everything she had known to be true. Reality has been altered in ways that should be impossible, but nevertheless her senses don’t lie to her. Slowly but surely, we understand just as she does what is happening around her. It’s frightening, yet that urge to know the truth is too strong to overcome. She takes those steps into the unknown because the stakes are too high. To turn away would leave questions unanswered in the short term, and certain extinction in the long term. Great science fiction movies reveal themselves subtly in this way. They build up the story, introduce the possibilities of where it can go, then leave us to discover how it all comes together. If the movie does not betray its internal logic, then that journey is fulfilled.