The Life Of Chuck (2025)

Based on a short story by Stephen King, The Life Of Chuck is adapted into screenplay form and directed by Mike Flanagan. For those expecting horror, however, you should be warned. As made clear by the marketing, this is actually one of the non-horror treats from King, and Flanagan has taken the opportunity to revel in an onscreen world full of optimism and, well, love.

Things work backwards, chronologically, but the main thing to know is that, as the title suggests, this is all about Charles 'Chuck' Franz (played at various points in his life by Cody Flanagan, Benjamin Pajak, Jacob Tremblay, and Tom Hiddleston). Chuck grew up with his grandparents (played by Mia Sara and Mark Hamill), likes dancing, and eventually gets used to the comforting idea that we each contain multitudes. We are the sum of everyone and everything we've ever experienced, even if it can seem as if we haven't done very much with our lives.

It's hard to hate The Life Of Chuck, and it could be argued that this is the kind of fantastical escapism that people need right now (considering the state of things here in 2025 . . . note to any time travellers reading this, SEND HELP). I was surprised to not really love it though. The first act leads up to an obvious enough reveal, even for those who haven't read the source material, and it was a mistake to try to play things off like a big mystery.

Narration from Nick Offerman helps a lot, and his voice is as wonderful as ever, but the rest of the cast is quite a mixed bag, aside from everyone playing Chuck (standouts being Pajak and Hiddleston). Chiwetel Ejiofor is wonderful as a teacher, Marty Anderson, but Karen Gillan isn't so good as his ex-wife, a nurse named Felicia Gordon. Mia Sara is lovely as the grandmother, Hamill overdoes things slightly as grandpa. Then you have many others who are just sorely underused, including Rahul Kohli, Matthew Lillard, and Annalise Basso. There's time for some superb drumming from The Pocket Queen AKA Taylor Gordon though, and Trinity Jo-Li Bliss is a winning presence to convincingly motivate our lead to keep enjoying his talent for dance.

One big set-piece at the halfway point is what you're ultimately left with here. The messaging of the movie is very good, but it's a fortune cookie homily that is somehow paradoxically given too much of the screentime and yet not enough of it. That one set-piece ties everything together so beautifully that it still works though, and thinking of that moment should make most viewers smile and appreciate the beauty and connections of life. It's just not quite enough. Reminding us that we contain multitudes should be done with much more of an emphasis on the multitudes. The Life Of Chuck tries to tell be grandiose and intimate at the same time, which leads to it feeling caught in between the two, and not being as successful in either approach as it could have been if Flanagan had figured out another way to present the material.

I enjoyed this while it was on. I would probably rewatch it. I didn't love it though, although it seems to have worked much better for a lot of other film fans. Maybe it will grow on me whenever I do end up giving it a rewatch.

6/10

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Mubi Monday: Legend (1985)

Yet another film that has been revisited and tinkered with by director Ridley Scott (who just cannot ever seem content with his films as originally released), Legend is a sumptuous fantasy flick that is almost non-stop style over substance.

Tim Curry is Darkness, determined to destroy daylight and turn the world into something dark and cold. He sends out some of his small denizens to set his plan into motion, which involves removing a horn from a unicorn and killing off those majestic creatures. A dark and cold world would be a more difficult one for Jack (Tom Cruise) and Lili (Mia Sara), especially as the former has professed his love for the latter. Do you know what a dampener it puts on new love to have Darkness turn your world into a landscape of night-time frost.

You can accuse Ridley Scott of many things, but you can never accuse him of skimping on things when it comes to creating a believable cinematic world. Love or hate the movies he has done over the years, they all take place in environments that feel 100% real. That also goes for Legend, a film with every scene looking ready for the viewer to step into. It's a shame that there's nothing else to it, beyond the visuals and the practical effects.

Writer William Hjortsberg, possibly familiar to horror fans as the writer of the novel that Angel Heart was adapted from ("Falling Angel"), has distilled things down to the most basic fairytale elements. Good, bad, magical creatures, and very little else of note. The dialogue is sparse, and what you do get isn't usually very good, unless uttered by Tim Curry. The plotting is slim, and the ending makes it all even slimmer.

Cruise and Sara do what they're asked to do, but it's just a case of them being in the right place onscreen, opposite some of the impressive creations. The best moment that Cruise gets is one in which he faces Meg Mucklebones (a green hag played by an unrecognisable Robert Picardo), but Sara gets to have a bit more fun in a sequence in which she is bewitched, and potentially turning evil. Billy Barty jumps around, David Bennent acts wide-eyed and mystical, and Annabelle Lanyon plays an oddly amorous fairy named Oona. The real star of the show is Curry, as unrecognisable under the make-up and prosthetics as many of the other performers. But there's always that voice, this time given a deeper timbre to convey the voice of Darkness. Curry really steals the show, thanks to the blend of the physical performance and practical effects.

Considering what it could have packed into the runtime, Legend is a dull film. It's also bloody gorgeous, and has a nice Tangerine Dream/Jerry Goldsmith score accompanying the visuals (delete as applicable, depending on the version you're watching). Not one to watch over and over again, I'd still tentatively recommend it to those who just want to sit back and let a visual experience wash over them.

6/10

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Timecop (1994)

Back in the late '80s and early '90s, Jean-Claude Van Damme was one of the top action movie stars. He'd done his time (there was the early role in a porn movie and then the film in which most of us saw him as the villain - No Retreat, No Surrender) and then low budget action flicks like Kickboxer and, a movie that remains one of his very best, Bloodsport set him on a fast track to superstardom that may not have remained at full strength but has certainly kept him in a career of high kicks and any excuse to do the splits. Watched nowadays, the better movies featuring JCVD in a leading role remain slick and enjoyable slices of entertainment. With plenty of high kicks and excuses for him to do the splits. But it's his adventures mixing sci-fi in with the action that seem to have stood the test of time the best. Universal Soldier is absolutely superb (thanks, in no small part, to an absolutely brilliant performance from Dolph Lundgren) but Timecop remains a very fun watch, despite its many flaws.

The story is based on the Dark Horse comic series and Van Damme plays Walker, a man who we see at the start of the movie having his life pretty much torn apart. We then skip forward a number of years to see that Walker is, funnily enough, a "timecop". Time travel has been invented but it needs to be closely monitored at all times and nothing should be done to change the past. Those who engage in such deeds (making themselves rich or trying to kill figures from the past, etc) are tracked down and severely punished. Bruce McGill plays the abrupt captain of the division who is also a friend to Walker, Gloria Reubens plays an agent ordered to tag along with our hero after his partner gets a bit too greedy and Ron Silver gives another entertaining performance as McComb, a Senator who has the Presidency in his sights and might just break the laws to get it. There's also Mia Sara looking a bit doe-eyed and being an extra motivational factor for our hero. And did I mention that Van Damme does some high kicks and even the splits?

Peter Hyams directs things with his usual skill. He's no major artist, in my opinion, but I've always found him to be a very dependable craftsman who often makes solid entertainment. The performances are better than average for a JCVD movie, with special mentions going to the great McGill and the fun Silver, but it's the script that really helps this one stay surprisingly sharp and fresh. Information is interspersed throughout the action in a way that never feels too forced or obtrusive, the premise may be full of paradox potential but also does a great job of blending in the smart stuff without making anything too difficult to follow.

The action scenes are well done and will please action fans while the sci-fi stuff is handled competently enough to please those after a bit of time travel fun. There's no doubt that it will have the more eagle-eyed viewers tutting in disapproval as the end credits roll and the plot holes stand out but the film never claims to be a serious look at the nature of time travel. It's an action-packed sci-fi thriller in which JCVD does some high kicks and has a few excuses to do the splits. Though I might have mentioned that already.

7/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Timecop-Blu-ray-Region-Free/dp/B003IHVKSI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1340140214&sr=8-1