Crisp Criticism - "Tomb Raider", "Red Sparrow", "Game Night", "The Death of Stalin", "12 Strong"

by

Julien Faddoul

Tomb Raider

Lara Croft must push herself beyond her limits when she finds herself on the island where her father disappeared.

A reboot of a pair of films based on a utterly uninteresting video game character; one whose only seeming ability is to run away from danger. Some set-pieces are exciting, but all of them seem extraneous.

d – Roar Uthaug

w – Geneva Robertson-Dworet, Alastair Siddons, Evan Daugherty

ph – George Richmond

pd – Stuart Baird, Tom Harrison-Read, Michael Tronick

m – Junkie XL

ed – Gary Freeman

cos – Colleen Atwood

p – Graham King

Cast: Alicia Vikander, Walton Goggins, Dominic West, Daniel Wu, Kristin Scott Thomas, Derek Jacobi, Nick Frost, Hannah John-Kamen, Antonio Aakeel

Red Sparrow

A ballerina is recruited to 'Sparrow School,' a Russian intelligence service where she is forced to use her body as a weapon. Her first mission, targeting a C.I.A. agent, threatens to unravel the security of both nations.

Dumber than a bag of rocks: This long, unreasonably pretentious spy movie is predictable at every turn, with a deliberate pace that only heightens the defalcations in the script.

d – Francis Lawrence

w – Justin Haythe (Based on the Book by Jason Matthews)

ph – Jo Willems

pd – Maria Djurkovic

m – James Newton Howard

ed – Alan Edward Bell

cos – Trish Summerville

p – David Ready, Steven Zaillian, Peter Chernin, Jenno Topping

Cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Joel Edgerton, Matthias Schoenaerts, Charlotte Rampling, Jeremy Irons, Ciarán Hinds, Joely Richardson, Mary-Louise Parker, Bill Camp

Game Night **

A group of friends who meet regularly for game nights find themselves entangled in a real-life mystery.

Strange, rather funny churlish comedy that, despite the tired premise, finds new ways to charm and surprise. It gets stuck up its own inventiveness well before the end, but its enthusiasm at trying something different is consistently admirable and infectious.

d – John Francis Daley, Jonathan Goldstein

w – Mark Perez

ph – Barry Peterson

pd – Michael Corenblith

m – Cliff Martinez

ed – David Egan, Jamie Gross, Gregory Plotkin

cos – Debra MaGuire

p – Jason Bateman, John Davis, John Fox, James Garavente

Cast: Jason Bateman, Rachel McAdams, Billy Magnussen, Sharon Horgan, Lamorne Morris, Kylie Bunbury, Jesse Plemons, Michael C. Hall, Kyle Chandler, Danny Huston, Jeffrey Wright, Chelsea Peretti

The Death of Stalin ***

Stalin’s core team of ministers tussle for control following the Russian leader’s stroke in 1953.

Bold, extremely dark comedy that brilliantly encapsulates the power struggle that occurred in the Soviet Union during the time and the callow, infantile reasons for the those involved to stay on top. It renounces certain historical-movie conventions, choosing not to adopt any kind of restorative interpretation of the material (most of the cast all use their native accents, no matter how diverse) and intertwines comedy with horror with such audacity that it risks total alienation. The actors are uniformly superb.

d – Armando Iannucci

w – Armando Iannucci, David Schneider, Ian Martin (Based on the Comic Book by Fabien Nury, Thierry Robin)

ph – Zac Nicholson

pd – Cristina Casali

m – Chrisotpher Willis

ed – Peter Lambert

cos – Suzie Harman

p – Yann Zenou, Nicolas Duval-Adassovsky, Laurent Zeitoun, Kevin Loader

Cast: Steve Buscemi, Simon Russell Beale, Jeffrey Tambor, Paddy Considine, Rupert Friend, Michael Palin, Andrea Riseborough, Jason Isaacs, Olga Kurylenko, Paul Whitehouse, Paul Chahidi, Dermot Crowley, Adrian McLoughlin, Tom Brooke

12 Strong *

A team of CIA agents and special forces head into Afghanistan in the aftermath of the September 11th attacks in an attempt to dismantle the Taliban.

An adequate war movie, but far too conventional for it’s gritty story. The result leaves one apathetic, unfortunately.

d – Nicolai Fuglsig

w – Ted Tally, Peter Craig (Based on the Book by Doug Stanton)

ph – Rasmus Videbæk

pd – Christopher Glass

m – Lorne Balfe

ed – Lisa Lassek

cos – Daniel J. Lester

p – Jerry Bruckheimer, Thad Luckinbill, Trent Luckinbill

Cast: Chris Hemsworth, Michael Shannon, Michael Peña, Trevante Rhodes, Navid Negahban, Geoff Stults, Thad Luckinbill, Austin Stowell, Ben O'Toole, Jack Kesy