Film of the Week: Rebel Moon Part Two: The Scargiver

Rebel Moon, Part Two: The Scargiver resembles, strangely, its protagonists, a ragtag crew of soldiers, prisoners, and heroes brought together to save a farming village, in that it's scrappy, cobbled together from better parts, but ultimately capable of getting the job done. Is it on the level of Star Wars or Dune as a generational epic? Almost certainly not, but those in the mood for a fun, pulpy sci-fi action flick will almost certainly find a lot to enjoy in it, which puts it leaps and bounds ahead of its sluggish, wet thud of a predecessor.

One thing I will praise Rebel Moon for is that it is unambiguously a movie made by Zack Snyder, and love or hate the man, you gotta admit he's got a style to him. Imitating the visual palette of his usual collaborator Larry Fong (who is sorely missed whenever Snyder isn't working with him), Rebel Moon Part Two is full of striking imagery and creative setpieces. Superheated blades rip through armor in flashes of orange sparks and blue flourishes. An army marches through smoke and mist, more of its numbers revealed in every step. Gryphon-riding knights battle gunships atop the rooftops of an ancient palace. It's a film from a man fed off a visual palette of sci-fi and epic fantasy, a veritable blend of influences from Conan the Barbarian to Warhammer 40K.

Of course, in terms of influence, it's hard to discuss this film without talking about its origins as a pitch for a Seven Samurai-inspired take on Star Wars that subsequently fell to the wayside, a victim of the Disney buyout of Lucasfilm. Whether this would've really fit with the Disney plans for the universe is hard to say, but given Snyder's fallout with Warner Bros., perhaps it's for the best that he be allowed to operate on his own merit.

The DNA of Star Wars is all over this, but it's to the credit of Rebel Moon that it doesn't feel like a serial numbers-filed-off rebrand. It leans into a grimmer, more fantastical style of costumes and production value design, evoking something closer to David Lynch's Dune than anything Lucas created. The action, however, is pure, uncut Snyder, full of that classic slow-mo and loving depictions of the human form that he's so known for. While it's absolutely indulgent (there is a ten-minute wheat gathering scene that had me in absolute stitches as it kept cutting back to it), it's often delightfully over-the-top, with the film's final hour being occupied entirely by the battle for the village. It's a battle with real weight where anyone can die, a completely relentless scrap that just keeps escalating. Gunships, massive tanks, lightsaber duels, all culminating in a kinetic brawl down a collapsing hangar between former soldier Kora (Sofia Boutella) and vengeful cybernetic admiral Atticus (Ed Skrein). When the film hits its stride, it hits hard.

The issue, unfortunately, lies in getting there. While Part Two is much brisker than the first and actually takes the time to develop its characters rather than simply introducing them and then pushing them to the background, the cast still never quite feel as cohesive or fleshed out as they need to be for the stakes of this to work. Much of the depth is left to the (admittedly quite strong) ensemble, with Djimon Hounsou's mournful General Titus and Sofia Boutella as particular favorites of the bunch, grasping at a level of emotional complexity that the script doesn't quite have. It's hardly film-breaking to the level of some recent genre fare, but it's harder to escape the style over substance feel of much of Snyder's work.

Ultimately, if you don't like Snyder, I doubt this will do much to convince you. But for the superfans, or those like me for whom Snyder is something of a guilty pleasure, there's a lot to like here. But hey, an Anthony Hopkins-voiced robot climbs inside of a spider-mech and wipes out a squad of space Nazis, so it's definitely not nothing. 

Film of the Week: Late Night with the Devil

The Satanic Panic of the 70s was an underlying symptom of the social and political upheaval of the era, as America's transition from the New Deal era to that of the neoliberal, centrist political system began in full force. The shining smiley-face vision of America had fully melted away, the era of "love thy neighbor" was dead, in its place was a cultural attitude of paranoia. And with this paranoia came the opportunity for those who were callous enough to exploit attitudes and powers beyond their control.

The exploiters are the focus of Late Night with the Devil, the indie horror film framed as a collection of footage from the infamous Halloween episode of Night Owls with Jack Delroy, a 70s late show and apparent rival to the likes of Johnny Carson. A mix of Ghostwatch (a real-time broadcast beset by the supernatural) and Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum (frequent behind-the-scenes footage that depicts the slow, steady breakdown of its participants), Late Night is all about perceptions of what is real and what is not and how people are willing to exploit that for fame, fortune, or a chance to get their name out. For the most part, it works, crafting a unique horror experience that compels its viewers, even as it goes off the rails slightly in its climax. Much of the credit for this is the excellent costume and set design, which faithfully recreates the look of the era, from the sliding door sets to the garish sideburns and bowlcuts of its various guests. It makes the show, largely, feel lived in, something that audiences have watched for years rather than just a cheap imitation. 

The 70s talk show aesthetic is so faithfully recreated that the Cairnes siblings willingness to subvert and distort it makes it feel like a jarring intrusion on what should be a safe space, perpetually ratcheting up tension as the show progresses closer and closer to its climax. Of course, this also makes the film's usage of AI art even more inexplicable, a lazy shortcut that breaks immersion every time it "graces" the screen and reflects poorly in an era when artists more than ever need solidarity.

The cast, similarly, is immensely game, playing a mixture of skeptics, charlatans, and professionals confronted with a horror that, if real, threatens to spiral beyond their control. David Dastmalchian in particular carries it, selling Delroy as an affable, troubled figure whose true nature, a mix of grief and desperation, bubbles up more and more with every passing minute. It's a character whose motivations are more implied than truly shown, and he sells it well, playing with audience perception and sympathy even as the "truth" is revealed.

It's the idea of perception and how to weaponize it that makes the film so effective. It's characters, intentionally, are vaguely written, their exact motivations and relationships, such as Delroy's relationship with June Ross-Mitchell (Laura Gordon), the caretaker/psychiatrist of Lilly (Ingrid Torelli), or the exact circumstances of his apparent Faustian bargan for fame and fortune, are left up to hints and audience interpetation. Effectively, it leaves us as viewers to the show, only lucky enough to see what they show us. This playing with the medium helps keep a sense of immersion, from the strange audio/visual glitches throughout to a particularly memorable sequence in which the audience witnesses a hypnosis, only to in turn be hypnotized themselves.

Even a move that should be immersion-breaking—a shift to a modern, high-definition style during the film's climax—doesn't break things too much. It's jarring, but in the chaos of the film's final twenty minutes, a delightfully practical bloodbath where the tightrope of tension and uncertainty finally snaps, it adds to the overwhelming feeling of witnessing something that has gone completely out of control. It's this creativity, this "throw at the wall and see what it sticks" mentality, that makes Late Night with the Devil such a treat and a worthy follow-up to its clear influences.

Film of the Week: The Killer

John Woo's The Killer, a seminal action masterpiece from which much of the modern genre owes its influence, opens on a quiet, solemn note: Ah Jong (Chow Yun-Fat) sitting in a church, quiet and contemplative. It's a quiet opening, but an effective one that is violently contrasted with the next scene, as Ah Jong departs on a hit, easily eliminating his targets but leaving Jennie (Sally Yeh), a kind nightclub singer, partially blind in the crossfire. From the get-go, Woo manages to connect the dots of one of the film's central ideas, and arguably it's most compelling: violence, no matter how effective or cool, wears on the soul, it's inescapable grasp refusing to let anyone go.

Throughout each of The Killer's kinetic, exhilarating shootouts, there's a sense of weight and consequences to it that make the action far from mindless. Jennie's blinding. A group of hitmen critically injure a little girl in their effort to kill Ah Jong. Detective Li Ying (Danny Lee), Ah Jong's foil, is introduced as he rashly kills a suspect in public, only to frighten his hostage into a fatal heart attack. These actions, the kind lesser action movies wouldn't think on, take a real toll, both physical and emotional, on our heroes and the people caught up in their conflicts, from the short-lived supporting cast to civilians who have the fatal misfortune of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. It's an often shocking amount of heart from Woo for me, someone more familiar with his more explosive, over-the-top American work in the form of Face/Off (a classic) and Mission Impossible 2 (the worst Mission Impossible). And yet, it's this heart that makes the movie and its characters fascinatingly compelling. The Killer is just as willing to sit and let its characters breathe and ponder to themselves as it is to let them blast their way out of a beachhouse.

And man, the gunfights really rip. Goons are torn apart and sent flying by the force of the rounds blasted through their bodies in a glorious ballet of tightly coordinated chaos, our heroes pumping out endless rounds as they fight against wave after wave of foes. Even after witnessing decades of its derivatives, the work of John Woo remains fresh and a blast to watch. It even understands that any action movie worth its salt gives you characters worth rooting for, completely nailing its unlikely buddy cop aesthetic with the excellent chemistry between Fat and Lee, a delightful pairing of two men whose philosophies and mutual respect bring them together. As the duo's story moves to its violent conclusion, you find yourself pulled on a genuine emotional rollercoaster, equal parts exhilarating and heartbreaking.

It's the film's conclusion, I think, that gives it the most weight, as Woo brings his reflection on violence home with a bang. The church, once a symbol of serenity and escape from violence, is destroyed, our hero loses his life, and his newfound friend loses everything in search of vengeance. It's a shocking, brutal close—the final fate of a blinded Ah Jong crying out for Jennie as he dies just inches from her a genuinely heartbreaking sequence. It's gutsy, bold, and it sticks with you just as much as any of the glorious, influential action.

Film of the Week: Inside Man

Inside Man is the peak example of getting an auteur director to do the kind of project often saved for journeymen. What could've, on paper, been a standard crime thriller is, in the hands of Spike Lee, turned into a clever, tense caper full of great performances and biting social commentary that is just a blast to watch. Another thing that makes Inside Man such an interesting watch is that it simply doesn't feel like a movie you make anymore. Mid-budgeted crime thrillers of this nature used to be a dime a dozen; now very rarely do they grace our silver screens. (Perhaps if more of you had seen Steve McQueen's excellent Widows, things would be different, but alas.) It's a film very much of its era, but rather than feel dated, it gives it a sense of being tied into its cultural moment that the best works of Spike Lee often do. NYPD officers shake down a Sikh witness, his protests falling on the unsympathetic ears of a diverse duo of detectives, while the film's true villain is none other than a bank founder trying to cover his ties to Nazi Germany. It's efforts at social commentary, rather than distracting, instead enhance the narrative, creating something angrier and more intriguing than the usual genre fare.

It helps, of course, that it's also a very entertaining watch. Lee's direction propels the film forward, with clever usage of cuts and shifts in perspective being deployed to leave the audience guessing without ever feeling lied to. A particular favorite is the film's interrogation scenes, narrative flash-forwards that swing from humorous to quietly revealing, sewing seeds of paranoia in the modern-day scene. It's incredibly confident in how it chooses to tell a story, even down to its usage of humor, which could've easily fallen flat but instead breaks the tension and makes the characters feel real and believable. Without spoiling, I'll confidently say this has one of the funniest needle drops of all time.

Another major point in Inside Man's favor? The absolutely stacked cast firing on all cylinders. Denzel Washington, one of our greatest leading men, plays Detective Frazier, a put-upon hostage negotiator, as a witty everyman who is just clever enough that his battle of wits with Dalton Russell (Clive Owen) never feels one-sided. Owen, in particular, is excellent, swinging from affable and witty to genuinely terrifying at the drop of a hat. One moment, he savagely beats a hostage for lying to him. The next? Quietly musing on the nature of violent videogames with a young boy unfortunate enough to be caught up in the robbery, a clever parallel is drawn between him and how the detectives similarly shift attitudes depending on the suspects they're interrogating.

In many ways, that idea, how clever people weaponize personality for their own ends, is the throughline of much of the film. From how the detectives switch from affable to harsh, to Dalton's willingness to dance between detached humor to seemingly casual cruelty, to Arthur Case's (Christopher Plummer) usage of charity to hide the bloodsoaked ways in which he acquired his wealth, Inside Man ponders the faces we wear to get the job done and how much, if any of it, is the real us. In this way, none of our characters are very different; all charismatic people who weaponize that charisma for their own means in a world where the lines of morality aren't quite so clear.