THE NORTHMAN: 3 ½ STARS
Robert Eggers is an idiosyncratic filmmaker whose previous films, âThe Witchâ and âThe Lighthouse,â have more in common with silent era movies and formal stage presentation than they do with the blockbusters that rule todayâs box office. His latest, the violent Viking drama âThe Northman,â now playing in theatres, has all the hallmarks of Eggersâ work, but despite the inclusion of Old Norse language, mysticism and its occasionally psychedelic tone, it may be his most accessible movie yet.
When we first meet Amleth, the Viking warrior prince, played as a teen by Oscar Novak, as a muscle-bound adult by Alexander Skarsgard, it is the year AD 895 somewhere in the North Atlantic. He is a child about to enter the line of succession to one day take over from his father, King Aurvandill (Ethan Hawke).
An unspeakable act of betrayal interrupts Aurvandillâs plans for the future, forcing Amleth to flee the only home he has ever known, leaving behind his mother Queen Gudrún (Nicole Kidman).
Years pass. Adult Amleth is now a fierce warrior with revenge on his mind. When the would-be prince and his band of berserkers ravage a village, the locals who survived the carnage are sold off as slaves. When Amleth learns the purchaser is the man who betrayed his father, he disguises himself as one of the prisoners with a plan to get close to the man who destroyed his life and family, and earn back his honour. âI will haunt this farm like a corpse returned from the grave,â he declares.
On the journey he meets Olga of the Birch Forest (Anya Taylor-Joy), a sorceress who becomes his ally and love interest. âYou are still a beast cloaked on man flesh,â she tells him. His strength, she says, will break their bodies. Her cunning will break their minds.
Amlethâs journey is also a spiritual one, driven by mysticism and the words of a whispering seeress played by Björk. âRemember for whom you shed your last teardrop,â she says, sending him off on his mission. Eggers seamlessly blends the supernatural and nature until the lines blur into one trippy whole.
âThe Northmanâ is based on the Scandinavian legend that influenced William Shakespeareâs beloved âHamlet.â Itâs a familiar story of payback; it's violent, visceral and vengeance-filled, but Eggersâ singular vision, and fondness for pathetic fallacy, ancient symbolism and psychedelia, make it a unique experience.
And donât forget the violence. So much violence.
Amleth chews one manâs neck, killing him in memorable, bloodthirsty fashion, and that is before the revenge story comes into play. Eggers amps up the brutality, shooting long scenes in unbroken wide shots that provide full few of the action. This ainât Michael Bayâs frantic cut and paste. Itâs full coverage, carefully orchestrated violence that drives home the brutality of the battles. Itâs ferocious, audaciousâcheck out the showdown at the Gates of Hellâif occasionally unpleasant, stuff.
It's not all fun and bloody games, however. The storytelling gets bogged down from time to time and Amlethâs frequent vocalizing of his mission mandateâavenge his father, kill his uncle and rescue his motherâgets old after a while.
Having said that, âThe Northmanâ more than delivers on the directorâs pure, primal cinematic vision. To ValhÇŤll!
THE UNBEARABLE WEIGHT OF MASSIVE TALENT: 3 ½ STARS
There is perfect casting and then there is Nicolas Cage, playing a heightened version of himself in âThe Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent,â a meta new action comedy now playing in theatres.
Off screen, Cage is a larger-than-life character, an Oscar winner known for his penchant for purchasing dinosaur skulls, tax troubles and wildly uneven cinematic output. He brings the weight of that public persona to this movie, making myth out of his own legend of self-indulgence.
Cage plays Cage as a faded Hollywood prince. Once a box office draw, heâs down on his luck, going broke and in need of a big money gig. He has become the White Claw of serious actors. Heâs good, but no one with taste is taking him seriously.
Producers, scared off by his wild-at-heart reputation, give him the Hollywood kiss off. We love you, but are going in a different direction.
Depressed, he decides to leave Hollywood. âIâm done,â he says. âIâm quitting acting. Tell the trades it was a tremendous honour to be part of storytelling and myth-making.â
Before he leaves the life, he gets an offer he canât refuse. Olive magnate Javi Gutierrez (Pedro Pascal) will pay Cage $1 million to attend his birthday bash in Mallorca. The actor reluctantly agrees, and soon finds himself drinking and cliff-diving at Javiâs beautiful estate.
Javi is a huge fan, with a collection of Cage collectibles. âIs this supposed to be me?â Cage asks, gesturing at a statue of himself. âItâs grotesque. Iâll give you $20,000 for it.â
Turns out the star struck Javi isnât what he appears. âDo you know who youâre spending time with?â CIA agent Vivian (Tiffany Haddish) asks Cage. âHeâs one of the most ruthless men on the face of the Earth.â
They think Javi kidnapped the daughter of the president of Catalonia to influence an upcoming election.
Vivian and Agent Martin (Ike Barinholtz) recruit Cage to work undercover on Javiâs estate to get to the bottom of the case. âThat little girl doesnât have anyone,â says Vivian, âAnd if you leave, I donât know what will happen to her.â
It's a chance to do some good, but for Cage, it is also the role of a lifetime.
âThe Unbearable Weight of Massive Talentâ is an entertaining, oddball movie. Essentially a one joke premiseâi.e.: Cage as Cageâit plays with the tropes of many of Cageâs films, but doesnât play as strictly homage or satire. Itâs something else. What, exactly, Iâm not quite sure.
Itâs almost as if this is Nic Cageâs screw you to the folks who deride him for being a working actor who pumps out two or three movies a year. âIâve always seen this as a job, as work,â he says, as though he feels bogged down by the weight of the critical appraisal of his artistic choices.
But this isnât a movie about score settling. Itâs a silly, action comedy, unabashedly interested in entertaining the audience. It occasionally errs, mistaking familiar references from Cageâs filmography for jokes. Itâs that âmeme-ificationââthe pinpointing of Cage call-backsâof the filmâs humour that prevents it from becoming a knee slapper all the way through. There are laugh out loud moments, but there are more moments that feel more Instagram ready than cinematic.
Still, âThe Unbearable Weight of Massive Talentâ is a good time, worth the price of admission to see young Cage advising older Cage and commit the most surreal example of actorly self-love ever seen on film.
THE BAD GUYS: 3 ½ STARS
âWe may be bad,â says Wolf, in âThe Bad Guys,â a new Dreamworks animated heist flick now playing in theatres, âBut we are so good at it.â
Wolf, voiced by Sam Rockwell, leads a criminal organization of anthropomorphic animals, safecracker Snake (Marc Maron), master of disguise Shark (Craig Robinson), an apex predator of a thousand faces Piranha (Anthony Ramos), a loose cannon with a short fuse and eight-legged tech wizard Tarantula (Awkwafina), who use their frightening reputations to strike fear into the hearts of their victims.
âDo I wish people didnât see us as monsters?â asks Wolf. âSure I do, but these are the cards we were dealt so we might as well play them.â
The gang is riding after a particularly daring bank robbery, but the wind is taken out of their sails when Governor Diane Foxington (Zazie Beetz) shames them during a press conference, calling them second-rate hacks, driven by anger, not intelligence. âThey have all the classic signs of a crew in decline,â she says.
Her televised insults push the Bad Guys to plan the ultimate heist, the theft of the Golden Dolfin, a priceless award given to philanthropists and do-gooders. This year it will be awarded to Professor Marmalade (Richard Ayoade), a hamster with a heart of gold.
When their heist goes sideways, Professor Marmalade, from the goodness of his heart, makes a deal with the Bad Guys and the Governor. He will teach the reprobates to use the skills they developed being bad, to be good.
âBeing good,â he says, âJust feels so good and when you are good, you are loved.â
Question is, can the Bad Guys be rehabilitated, or is it time to take the âwalking garbageâ to the trash and lock them up forever?
Based on the New York Times best-selling graphic novel series by Australian author Aaron Blabey, âThe Bad Guysâ is kind of like âOceanâs 11,â but for kids. The emotional undercurrents that Pixar weaves into their movies are missing, replaced with a snappy, stylish story that is more swagger than substance. The movieâs singular messageâdonât judge a book by its coverâis a good one for kids, but it is hammered home with the subtly of a Don Rickles one-liner. Itâs a movie about not accepting stereotypes, that is ripe with stereotypes.
The animation is stylish, but not as sophisticated as weâve come to expect from big screen offerings like this. Wolfâs fur is rudimentarily rendered and the overall look doesnât have the zip of Pixar or other computer-generated films.
Having said all that, âThe Bad Guysâ succeeds through sheer strength of the characters and the humour in Etan Cohen and Hilary Winstonâs witty script. There are silly characters kids will get a kick out of, like the flatulent piranha, coupled with jokes parents will appreciate.
Despite its shortcomings, in the end, âThe Bad Guysâ does good for the audience.
THE AUTOMAT: 4 STARS
A new documentary, âThe Automat,â directed by Lisa Hurwitz and now playing in theatres, is an evocative look back at a time when you could get a square meal for a round quarter.
For more than 50 years, Horn & Hardart automats fed more Americans than any other restaurant chain. For the price of a nickel you could get a cup of strong coffee, poured from a spout shaped like a dolphin. The rest of the menu was housed behind small doors with windows that displayed the wares, like baked beans, chicken pot pies, creamed spinach or U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powellâs favourite, macaroni and cheese. Pop a coin in the slot, open the door, and lunch or dinner is served.
âThe Automatâ uses talking heads, like Mel Brooks, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Elliott Gould, and archival footage to create a nostalgic look at a by-gone institution, but to also contextualize the contributions the quirky restaurants made to American society.
A precursor to fast food chains like Burger King or Arbyâs, both of whom would later fall under the Horn & Hardart umbrella, the automats were a sensation. The first Horn & Hardart automat opened in 1902 in Philadelphia with a strict adherence to quality and egalitarianism. For the next 89 yearsâthe last New York Horn & Hardart automat closed in April 1991âeveryone was welcome with no racial barrier, tables were shared by strangers and, at their heyday in the 1940s and 1950s, they served upwards of 350,000 customers a day in New York alone.
Everyone interviewed raves about the food and the restaurants. Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz talks about how a visit to Horn & Hardart sparked his love of the hospitality business, and how it influences him today. Powell remembers family outings and the delicious pies that were a once-a-week treat.
As glowing as the interviews are, there is often a sense of nostalgic melancholy about the demise of the automatâa victim of changing timesâas an example of how the good old days, represented by the elegant and welcoming restaurants, are truly behind us.
âIt had some style and it was different,â says self-serve automat superfan Mel Brooks. âThe marble, the brass, the polished floors, the chatter, the coffee. That was the automat. It canât work again because the logistics and economics of today wonât allow anything that simple, naive, elegant and beautiful to flourish again.â
âThe Automatâ is a quickly paced, interesting and affectionate populist documentary that brings to life how, for a time, happiness could be bought for the price of a cheap cup of Joe.