For the week of September 26th, Universal Studios Home Entertainment streeting the fantasy epic Warcraft. You got to give it to the film; it really wants to break the curse of bad videogame-to-movie adaptations. In approximating the complex, expansive universe of the popular RPG, director Duncan Jones and screenwriter Charles Leavitt have crafted a large-scale morality play, one that examines the rift between the Orcs and the Azeroths. The two tribes are natural enemies, but when an extremist Orc leader (Daniel Wu) gets hold of a power that could destroy both their ways of life, an Azeroth soldier (Travis Fimmel) and a conflicted Orc (Toby Kebbell) try to put aside their people's differences for the good of all existence. That setup has way more promise than one might expect, and certainly Jones (who, FYI, is also the son of David Bowie) has succeeded in the past in giving otherwise familiar genre templates humanity and moral ambiguity. His great Moon was a character study disguised as a sci-fi mindbender, and he helped turn Source Code from a rote thriller into a surprisingly playful riff on Groundhog Day, of all pictures. However, try as he might, Jones can't quite work the same magic here. For one, Leavitt's script doesn't give Jones the richness that the film's ethical dilemma deserves. Fimmel and Kebbell are both quite good, but you can sense they're bringing nuance through sheer force of performance. Leavitt is far too content to trot out old clichés, including the unstable mage (Ben Foster, who at least is enjoying himself), the noble king (Dominic Cooper, whose wife is played by his Preacher co-star Ruth Negga), and the half-breed caught between two worlds (Paula Patton, sporting a truly ridiculous set of facial prosthetics). Furthermore, Jones might be interested in making a morality play, but Universal, Legendary, and Blizzard want a four-quadrant blockbuster, and so Warcraft lurches unsteadily between courtly and racial intrigue and gaudy CGI battlefields. The blend can work (Lord of the Rings, anyone?), but you need to give the more challenging material space to breathe. At 123 minutes, Warcraft is too content to hustle through to the good stuff. An interesting misfire, but a misfire nonetheless.
Martin Liebman's Blu-ray review called the film "a serviceably entertaining fantasy/adventure film that's more a product of its name and less any kind of interesting story it has to tell, forced to cram several games and many novels worth of development into a two-hour movie...Warcraft is unquestionably a technical achievement. Visual effects often look and feel seamless, perfectly meshing with their surroundings and human counterparts to the point that, beyond digital that's obvious if only because there's no other way to make the effect - the Orcs, for instance - the line is practically completely blurred. But many other films of the past few years can claim much the same. Digital wizardry isn't enough anymore. Making a movie a success stems more from creative, involved storytelling and less the wow factor that splashes on the screen. Warcraft doesn't quite get that part right. The story has its roots in simplicity, but all of that lore and mythology - spelled out in several lengthy games and several more novels based in the Warcraft universe - can't quite be absorbed by the movie, even at two hours. Jones and the other filmmakers necessarily cram a ton into the movie, and much of it is a mouthful. It can be a little hard to keep straight. Newcomers may very well struggle, though franchise veterans will find it much more comfortable."
From Warner Home Entertainment comes the action-comedy Central Intelligence. Stop me if you've heard this one before: an unassuming everyman (Kevin Hart) gets dragged into international espionage and murder after he's thrown into an adventure by a former high-school classmate - and current rogue CIA operative. Director Rawson Marshall Thurber and screenwriters Ike Barinholtz and David Stassen make some feints towards originality through some side backstory (Hart's put-upon accountant was a jock in high school, whereas Johnson was a sensitive, chubby loser), but the majority is as familiar as the sunset. I can easily list all the things that don't work about Central Intelligence. Thurber's leaden, uninspired approach to comedy (it's sad to think he peaked with Dodgeball twelve years ago). The presence of both Aaron Paul and Amy Ryan, both of whom deserve far better than they're given here. Pretty much everything with Kevin Hart, who starts at eleven and just keeps cranking up, as if increased decibel levels will somehow make his frantic milquetoast character funnier (spoiler: they don't). The fact that we're staring down yet another remake-in-all-but-name-only of The In-Laws, which pulls off more gags and surprises in its last twenty minutes than Central Intelligence does in almost two hours. And yet, I'm giving the film a pass exclusively on the strength of Dwayne Johnson's brilliant comic work. Joke for joke, this is easily his funniest performance - he has a Buster Keaton-esque gift for slapstick, especially in his reaction shots after he kills a baddie in the most disgusting way possible - that matches Peter Falk's deadpan insanity in The In-Laws. All's well that ends well in Central Intelligence, but Johnson is so nervy and unpredictable that you keep waiting for him to occupy a richer, darker comedy (we get flashes of the Dwayne Johnson from Southland Tales, people). Furthermore, while his character arc is Screenwriting 101 (bullied nerd makes good), Johnson maintains a natural sympathy. He has always had a vulnerability just behind his Scorpion King physique, and he never lets us forget the hurt in his unstable wild card's eyes. It's a great movie-star turn, and it makes you wish some major director would start taking advantage of his singular screen talents.
Broad Green and Amazon Studios are bringing Nicolas Winding Refn's lurid horror-satire-feminist manifesto The Neon Demon to Blu-ray this week. The Bronson and Valhalla Rising auteur now turns to the world of high fashion as young model Jesse (Elle Fanning) tries to make her big break. Her beauty and mystery immediately beguile everyone around her, but that attention comes at a brutal cost, pitting Jesse against jealous fellow models (Bella Heathcote, Abbey Lee), unscrupulous fashion mavens (Christina Hendricks, Desmond Harrington), a makeup artist possessed of unhealthy attentions (Jena Malone, giving the film's bravest, most outré performance), and a seedy landlord (Keanu Reeves) who is at best a pervert and at worst a serial killer. It's an unsettling setup, but Refn has always enjoyed wallowing. His aesthetics are impeccable: frequent collaborator Cliff Martinez creates a sonic landscape as ominous as any of his scores for The Knick or Drive, and Natasha Braier's widescreen cinematography is a marvel. Rarely has plumbing the depths of human misery looked so resplendent, so ghoulishly lovely. Yet despite all of Refn's exquisite care and craft, The Neon Demon marks the first time I've ever sided with his detractors. Those who love him find his work sensuous and provocative; those who hate it find it vapid and indulgent; and I confess to tiring of The Neon Demon as it rolled into its second hour. Ultimately, Refn has nothing new to add to his criticism of the fashion world - models are image obsessed to the point of literal insanity? Shocker! - and his high-toned surfaces begin to feel oppressively precious and (dare I say it?) pretentious. Especially considering that, ultimately, The Neon Demon is little more than a Grand Guignol chiller in Louboutins - there's something upsetting about such empty sadism (necrophilia, cannibalism, rape-heavy fantasies) getting the red-carpet treatment. One could levy the same complaint at, say, Brian De Palma, but the De Palma who flirted with misogyny and sexual perversity in Body Double and Dressed to Kill also had the guts to follow his depravity to its extreme conclusions. Hell, Refn did, too, with the thrilling, hyperviolent Drive and Only God Forgives, which makes his restraint here all the more puzzling. For all the horrors nestled inside The Neon Demon, the film shies away from showing us anything too awful (outside of the very ending and a beyond-unnerving Jena Malone scene), almost like Refn wants the charge of his taboo topics without honoring the awful weight of the actions themselves. It feels like he's simultaneously scolding us and getting high off his own supply. At least someone is having fun.
I'd be more forgiving, maybe, if someone hadn't beaten Refn at his own game, and almost fifty years prior. Blame Russ Meyer, whose brilliant Beyond the Valley of the Dolls hits Blu-ray in a gorgeous Criterion Collection edition. An in-name-only sequel to Mark Robson's dull soaper Valley of the Dolls, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls remains the seminal gonzo Hollywood satire. Like Refn, Meyer is interested in the cost of fame, and he expresses it through similarly melodramatic terms; an all-girl rock group (Dolly Read, Cynthia Myers, and Marcia McBroom) heads to Los Angeles to make it big, but fame corrupts them more than they expected, particularly once they fall into the clutches of Machiavellian pop-music producer Ronnie "Z-Man" Barzell (John LaZar, doing that manic Johnny Depp thing long before even Johnny Depp learned how). But whereas Refn keeps things ponderously self-important (if The Neon Demon does want to be funny, it's in aping a dry, Jim Jarmusch-esque style without having any inkling of how Jarmusch makes it work), Meyer conducts the proceedings with the mad rush of a sugar high. Or a fever dream. Or both - Beyond the Valley of the Dolls is that unhinged. Every time you think it can't possibly top itself, the film gets crazier, tossing out celebrity parodies and deviant sex and lunatic gore and surprisingly catchy songs (oh yeah, it's also a fully-fledged musical) and never pausing for breath during the course of its 107 relentlessly edited (courtesy of Dann Cahn and Dick Wormel) minutes. Now, in fairness, Meyer is just as attracted to his subjects as Refn is - while Meyer's softcore tendencies aren't in full blossom here (in no way does this film deserve its NC-17 rating), he gives ample, leering attention to a certain part of the female anatomy - but Meyer films his attractive cast with a positive, gleeful zest. He doesn't make you feel guilty for enjoying the show. Plus, he has a secret weapon. The great film critic Roger Ebert wrote the script, and it might be his finest achievement. Every scene is insane, and every line is a zinger. Watching Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, you realize it's just as important an influence on the Austin Powers series as James Bond is, if not more so. Ebert's good humor and wit turns the film into a rarity: a sexploitation romp with a brain. Even when the picture degenerates into horrific violence (the ending references both the Sharon Tate murders AND Phil Spector's...ahem, later years), it's built up such goodwill that the bloodshed is only a few shades darker than a Looney Tunes. One of the definitive films about the dream of the 1960s.
In his Blu-ray review, Svet Atanasov wrote that "it remains an incredibly polarizing film. Today its critics are probably a smaller group than its admirers, but their passion to dismiss it as pure trash has not weakened. This is hardly surprising. When these types of films emerge and then hordes of critics and knowledgeable fans clash and fire flares at each other, their valid points tend to get lost in the smoke because the debate quickly becomes personal...The LA scenery is authentic, but the atmosphere and especially the various attitudes and behaviors on display are artificial. This is arguably the film's biggest weakness. The people that exist in this reality are essentially transformed into kinky puppets whose one and only function is to target and humiliate each other. They are rock musicians, businessmen, actors and athletes, but they are all created equal. Since none of the relationships between these puppets matter much, the film basically collapses under its own weight. It is true that for a while the chaos and kitsch are quite entertaining, but then Meyer runs out of tricks. After that it does not matter much what the actors say or do in front of the camera as it is essentially more of the same -- the eyes know it and the mind no longer cares. Ultimately, the film divides people for similar reasons. The people that defend it do it because they like the fact that it delivers excess in huge doses. This is good enough for them. They embrace its manufactured reality and reject the conventional logic that questions its existence. The people that dismiss the film do it because they can't rationalize the excess. They want a structure and a message that justifies its presence and since the film does not have them they can't warm up to it."