Netflix And Chill: The Circle (2017)

I didn't mind The Circle, but I didn't really enjoy it either, and I am going to say that the fault here needs to be shared between the pair of us. The film doesn't quite do enough with the main ideas it is working with, but I may have enjoyed it a bit more if I'd watched it back when it was first made available in 2017. The intervening years have simply shown us more and more reasons to distrust tech-bros and offensively rich and powerful individuals, which makes The Circle much less tense and more predictable than it would have been in a world before people like Bezos and Musk started to act increasingly like parodies of James Bond villains.

Emma Watson plays Mae, a young woman who is helped in to a dream job by her friend, Annie (Karen Gillan). She ends up in the Circle, a tech company that has seemingly unlimited power and resources. It's a bit odd though, considering how people are encouraged to interact online and fully commit to the Circle way of life. The pill is sugar-coated by the big boss, Bailey (Tom Hanks), who can acknowledge how silly some of their practices appear, but continues to present his vision of a tech-reliant utopia in a way that is convincingly benign. Some start to worry about the implications, however, as the Circle starts to reach further and further into the lives people all around the world.

Based on a novel by Dave Eggers, this was adapted from page to screen by a pairing of the writer and director, James Ponsoldt. Eggers has worked on other movies, and Ponsoldt has a mixture of projects in his filmography (with his best work being made for the small screen), but none of them manage to find the best way to handle this material. What should be a standard dream-turns-sour scenario, with the added threat of super-charged tech to make things more complicated, is turned into a disappointingly dull drama in which things go quite well for many of the characters . . . until they stop being so blissfully naïve. The biggest problems stem from the way things are plotted, but it doesn't help that the cast is relatively weak.

As much as I enjoy Emma Watson, she hasn't quite managed to convince in any of her post-Potter main roles, despite trying her hand in an interesting variety of projects. She's not bad here, but she's also not a strong enough screen presence, and is outshone by almost every supporting cast member (including Gillan, Hanks, Patton Oswalt, John Boyega, and Glenne Headly and Bill Paxton, who do wonderful work in the role of her parents). Mind you, few of those people I just mentioned are the best people for their roles either. Gillan has to overdo a heap of nervy paranoia throughout the second half, Hanks seems far too nice to have reached his position in life, and Oswalt isn't given enough screentime to make his character anything more than an obvious schemer who does some hand-wringing and metaphorical wiping of his damp brow as the plot heads toward the final scenes. Boyega does well, but his relatively small role here feels as if it doesn't deserve his talents.

It's ironic that I'll be sharing this review around in the usual places, ensuring that it ends up in certain social media spots, linking to it on IMDb, and potentially making some money from clicks that are generated via Google. Considering what the film posits, maybe I am part of the problem. Okay, I admit it, I am definitely a part of the problem. We all are, but many of us are savvy enough to shape our own corner of the internet to exactly how we want it to be, with the help of ad-blockers, data usage options, and ongoing attempts to balance out the negatives with more positives. There are very few legitimately good options nowadays when it comes to conscientiously maintaining an online presence. But at least I can use this platform to belatedly warn you against wasting your time with The Circle. It's not terrible, but it never manages to become more than harmlessly dull and average.

4/10

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Netflix And Chill: They Cloned Tyrone (2023)

Thanks to the cast and the aesthetic I saw in the trailer, I was looking forward to They Cloned Tyrone. Then it dropped on Netflix and, like many a release once it appears on there, I just never made it a priority. Other people got around to watching it though, and many enjoyed it. That spurred me on to get around to it ASAP.

John Boyega plays Fontaine, a drug dealer who works in his home neighbourhood of The Glen. After trying to collect money owed to him by a pimp named Slick Charles (Jamie Foxx), Fontaine is fatally shot by a rival dealer, Isaac (J. Alphones Nicholson). This shooting is witnessed (sort of) by a sex worker named Yo-Yo (Teyonah Parris). It's understandable that Slick becomes confused when Fontaine reappears at his door the next evening still trying to collect his money, and the two then track down Yo-Yo to try and get to the bottom of this mysterious resurrection. It turns out that something odd is going on beneath their feet, something that is affecting the entire local black population. And it might be just the tip of the iceberg.

Writer-director Juel Taylor (assisted once again on the screenplay by co-writer Tony Rettenmaier, the two having also worked on Space Jam: A New Legacy) makes his solo feature debut here, after helming numerous shorts and participating in at least one anthology and one TV movie, and he obviously had a blast making something so stylish, infused with funk and blaxploitation elements, and happily blending genres. They Cloned Tyrone isn't a film that holds back on trying to keep viewers entertained. Superficially, the world onscreen is a well-realised one, the fashion and environments are all very retro-cool, and it's easy to accept everything as it plays out. Superficially. There's one flaw at the heart of the plot though, despite how satisfied you may or may not be by any attempt to explain it, and that's the actual resurrection that kickstarts the entire chain of events. I might have missed something, it's been known to happen, but it felt like this main plot point would, at the very least, simply cause a headache for those trying to mastermind a devious and disturbing plan that is spelled out in the third act. 

Questions about the plot aside though, there's plenty of fun to be had with this cast doing wonderfully clumsy and abrupt detective work. Boyega, Foxx, and Parris are all good performers, but things are always raised up a notch in the many scenes that have them all together. Although I have seen her in a number of other roles, Parris is the standout here, her character having more actual intelligence and more actual courage than the men who spend so much time keeping their own worries and fears hidden behind a mask of macho bravado, but the three leads feel like perfect casting. There are also enjoyable turns from Nicholson, David Alan Grier, and Kiefer Sutherland (playing the aptly-monikered Nixon).

Taylor has namechecked a number of cinematic influences on They Cloned Tyrone and they're all enjoyably obvious, but it's impressive that he has made this feel both laden with homage and yet also highly original. The soundtrack and visuals help in that regard, because the movies being referenced are viewed through the more common white male gaze, but it's also a willingness to go just a bit further than you might expect, with the silliness and the horrible implications of what is going on.

Sadly not great, there are just too many gaps in logic to make it feel as well-constructed as it could be, but this is good fun while it's on and the leads are great company to be in for a couple of hours.

6/10

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Pacific Rim: Uprising (2018)

Following the sequel template, Pacific Rim: Uprising stars some lesser-known actors, compared to the first film, and isn't quite as good. Thankfully, it's still a lot of fun for those who enjoyed the world that the first film dropped us into.

John Boyega is Jake Pentecost (son of Stacker Pentecost, played by Idris Elba in the first film). Cailee Spaeny is a young girl named Amara Namani, a talented mechanic who keeps working to improve her single-pilot Jaeger (Jaeger = large, fighting robot for those who are playing catch up). Last, and least, is Scott Eastwood as Nate Lambert, a Jaeger pilot who has a past with Jake. All three come together, as well as some other, sadly forgettable, supporting players , when it looks as if there's a new threat from the monsters that had previously been thought dealt with. That's all you need to know.

As technically proficient as the first film, Pacific Rim: Uprising both benefits and suffers from the need to avoid just repeating the exact same set-pieces as the ones we already saw. The plot this time deals with upgrades and hybrids, which is fine, but also reduces the tension quite early on. Viewers can see that the new enemy is even stronger, and a lot tougher to beat, so the finale is very predictable from the first act. Director Steven S. DeKnight helps to offset this with some impressive, and impressively clear, visuals throughout. He knows that this is a huge helping of cheese (because who wouldn't know it?) and he at least makes the payoff worthwhile, keeping the Jaegers front and centre during the set-pieces that are interspersed throughout. Do you want quotable dialogue and thought-provoking explorations of responsibility and mortality or do you want to see a giant robot produce a giant pair of swords and use them against another giant robot? You can't have both, but the latter is a hell of a lot of fun to watch.

As much as I enjoyed Pacific Rim, the script was not it's strong point, and it's the same here. Without Travis Beacham or Guillermo del Toro taking care of things, it's left to Emily Carmichael, T. S. Nowlin, Kira Snyder, and DeKnight. They do what needs to be done in order to connect events and allow this to feel like a proper next chapter in the story, which it does, but they saddle the cast with a lot of lame lines in between the action beats.

That could have been easier to overlook if the cast were on good form with the material but, sadly, most of them aren't. Boyega is very good in the lead role, and both Charlie Day and Burn Gorman have fun reprising their scientist roles, but nobody else makes much of an impression. Spaeny and Eastwood don't have the charisma required to make this, at the very least, a decent three-hander, and the other supporting players fade into the background almost as quickly as they appear. At least Spaeny might do better in other roles, Eastwood is already making bland his standard acting style for every role (he may have the name of his father, but he didn't inherit his talent).

If you want to get your fix of giant robots fighting one another then this is much better than the majority of the Transformers series. It's not as good as the first, and it's no Real Steel, but it's a fun idea that is well-realised on the screen. And the bigger the screen you can watch it on, the better it will seem.

You can buy Pacific Rim: Uprising here.
Americans can pick it up here.

The Last Jedi (2017)

It's the same old story when it comes to beloved film franchise instalments. Fans complain if something feels too beholden to everything that has come before it and then you also get an outcry if they think something has made too many changes to the characters or material they have grown with over a number of years.

I can just imagine writer/director Rian Johnson rubbing his hands together in glee as he clicked everything into place for this film, undoubtedly under the watchful eyes of many people with a vested interest in what is probably the most profitable moneymakers in cinema history, in terms of combined box office and merchandising. This is a film that manages to emulate the feeling of devastation and insurmountable odds that featured in The Empire Strikes Back while also still managing to do enough to stand out as something surprisingly unique.

A lot of that comes from the visual design, with a number of set-pieces making the most of the colour red, either alone or as it contrasts with the environment (in much the same way that gunfights and swordfights can be elevated when blood is spattering on to crisp, white snow). More of that unique feeling comes from the ways in which the main characters are shown to have been transformed by their experiences, be they recent or years in the past. Luke is very different from when we last saw him (something that Mark Hamill famously, initially, disagreed with Johnson on). Leia is even more of a military leader than ever before. Kylo Ren continues to try to find a way forward that will give him both notoriety and some personal satisfaction, Rey may or may not be destined to be a Jedi, and heroic pilot Poe Dameron may have to accept the fact that his rash actions are costing too many lives for him to keep careening forward without enough consideration of the risks and reward.

I guess I should mention the plot, although I feel like I already have. Sort of. The Last Jedi is a character piece, it's a war film, it's a sci-fi epic showing entertaining fights that also manages to show people starting to fully realise the consequences of their actions, be they small or huge. That's what it's all about, and the various twists and turns of the plot are largely redundant "filler", in some ways, if you consider how the whole thing begins and ends (wait and see).

Most of the main players from The Force Awakens return, and they're all still very good in their roles. Daisy Ridley and John Boyega remain two sides of a coin depicting unlikely heroes, with the former wondering if she can ever learn to use the force and the latter doing whatever he can physically to give allies time and space. Oscar Isaac continues to be a hugely likable presence as Dameron, which is more essential this time as his character makes a couple of dubious judgment calls. Hamill is very good, darker than we've ever seen him before, Fisher gets a fitting final turn as Leia, and both Adam Driver and Domnhall Gleeson are as entertaining in their evil roles as they were the first time around. Benicio Del Toro and Laura Dern are two of the main newcomers, both do well but it's Dern who is given the better character.

You also get to see BB-8 again, Kelly Marie Tan (another newcomer) is pretty great as Rose Tico, someone else willing to keep doing their part for the war even as the odds become more and more overwhelming, there's a small amount of screentime for Captain Phasma (Gwendoline Christie), Andy Serkis portrays the mysterious Snoke, there's a near-overdose of cuteness in the shape of little creatures called porgs, a near-overdose of CGI in a completely superfluous chase sequence reminiscent of the overstuffed prequel trilogy, plenty of cameo appearances (both obvious and really not so obvious - hard to see faces under those trooper helmets), and another fantastic score from John Williams.

Some will hate it, some will love it. I love it, and I hope that eventually even those who were so up in arms about the decisions made will recognise that Johnson did what needed to be done in order to keep the franchise from fading out before this new story arc was completed.

8/10

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Detroit (2017)

Based on a true incident that happened in Detroit in 1967, Detroit is an intense, infuriating, engrossing return to top form for Kathryn Bigelow, a director I have always enjoyed, despite not loving her past few projects as much as many other people.

Things kick off with a police raid on a club that leads to a riot. African Americans feel, quite rightly, that they are being unduly picked on by authorities. With rocks being thrown, stores being looted, and properties being vandalised, it's not long until permission is given to back up the police with the National Guard and Army bods. Against this backdrop of racial tension, the members of a vocal group on the verge of great success decide to relax and party in their hotel. Someone mucking about at the party decides that they will have fun with a starter gun . . . and that is when things really start to go downhill. The police surround, and enter, the building. And they're not leaving without being satisfed by their own level of justice.

As mentioned in the film itself, this isn't a 100% factual representation. It's a depiction of an event provided after sifting through a variety of conflicting accounts of what happened on that night. But it certainly feels as if writer Mark Boal doesn't ever veer too far away from the truth. Whether things were twisted to make them more cinematic or not, this is a masterclass in character sketches, ratcheting tension, and how to shade morally bankrupt figures without making them seem completely inhuman.

Bigelow has been working with material this tense for some time, with moments of The Hurt Locker being the most obvious example, and she's a dab hand at it (to say the least). Those scenes dealt with physical explosives. Detroit focuses on a situation that viewers know could explode at any moment. Things are bad, but everyone involved knows that one wrong move could make things a hell of a lot worse.

It helps that the cast are all very much up to the task in hand. Algee Smith and Anthony Mackie are two of the main men being held by the police, with the latter a war veteran who prompts one or two individuals to consider changing their tack. John Boyega is on the scene, a security guard torn between his duties as an employee and his desire to resolve the whole situation peacefully without anyone being beaten or shot. And Will Poulter, Jack Reynor, and Ben O'Toole are the three main officers dictating how the whole scenario will play out. Reynor and O'Toole are both very good, but it's the sheer disgust coming out of the very pores of Poulter that overshadows everything else. His performance is excellent, as discomforting and scary as anything you might see in a mainstream horror movie.

It's a great shame that none of the events depicted in Detroit feel any less believable nowadays. We should be watching this in state of incredulity, shocked at what was once acceptable but has since become a rarity. And the fact that it's not hard to believe adds another layer to the whole experience. It's not comfortable, it's not pleasant, but it's one of the best films of 2017.

9/10

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