Netflix And Chill: Cold Comes The Night (2013)

Alice Eve stars in this film. I like Alice Eve. Bryan Cranston also stars in this film. I like Bryan Cranston. Logan Marshall-Green makes it three for three, even if I don't like him as much as I like the other two. So I figured that I might enjoy Cold Comes The Night, despite hearing bad things about it. I became even more optimistic when I saw Osgood Perkins as one of the co-writers. That optimism quickly disappeared as the film started to play out.

Alice Eve is Chloe, a woman having a hard time of things. She's trying to keep custody of her daughter (Sophia, played by Ursula Parker), trying to run a far-from-idyllic motel, and not on best terms with her ex (a cop named Billy, played by Marshall-Green, she has had an affair with). Things go from bad to worse when someone is killed on the motel premises, and that someone was supposed to be working with a dangerous criminal named Topo (Cranston). Chloe ends up enlisted by Topo to help finish a job that has been started, but she also sees a way that she might be able to turn the situation to her advantage, especially when she realises how visually-impaired Topo is.

I've not seen anything else from director Tze Chun, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Perkins and Nick Simon, and I'm unlikely to now rush to anything else with his name on it. Cold Comes The Night is pretty awful, and it feels even worse because of how the main cast members have their talents squandered. Every character and moment feels like an inferior copy from numerous other movies. It's a VHS that has been used to record the Christmas Day TV schedule on long play for two decades, with any real detail or entertainment value now completely obscured by shadows and lots of static. 

Eve tries to make things work, despite the fact that she has once again picked a dud to star in, and Marshall-Green has one or two moments that at least punctuate the tiresome awfulness of the whole thing, but Cranston overshadows both of them, and not at all for the right reasons. His accent, his physical performance, his energy in every moment just feels completely wrong, which is at odds with how well he does with better material.

I want to be angry at this, if only on behalf of the main cast members who surely thought they were signing on for something a bit better, but I can't even do that. There's nothing here to fuel my rage because, well, there's nothing here. The cinematography is unexceptional, the score is unexceptional, the editing is . . . etc, I'm sure you see what I'm getting at. I'm not even really angry at Chun. He doesn't put any stamp on the film, and I can go through my life fairly safe in the knowledge that I'll have probably forgotten his name by the time I ever, IF I ever, see another film from him.

I didn't like this very much, which I think I have made very obvious, and I'll hopefully never have to think of it again after today.

3/10

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Upgrade (2018)

Written and directed by Leigh Whannell, Upgrade is a sci-fi action movie that also revels in moments of gloriously gory vengeance. While it’s only the second directorial feature from Whannell, he already shows a big step up from his work on Insidious 3 (which was, admittedly, hampered by it feeling very unnecessary and also too tenuously connected to the other movies in that series).

It's the future. A believably near future. Homes are efficiently managed by computers, as are cars, and most people have become very comfortable with giving commands to invisible helpers. Grey (played by Logan Marshall-Green) is not one of those people, despite the fact that his wife (Asha, played by Melanie Vallejo) is. Marshall-Green much prefers to get his hands dirty, such as when he is working on classic cars that need an actual driver to drive them. Despite their opposing views on technology, the husband and wife make a lovely couple, until a car accident leaves them vulnerable to an attack by vicious crooks. With his wife dead and himself rendered quadriplegic, Grey would rather be dead. There is, however, a small gleam of light at the end of the tunnel. A new tech called STEM, a chip that could be planted in just the right place inside his body to help him walk and have a normal life again. But the procedure, and tech, has to be kept a secret. Which becomes more difficult as STEM starts to speak to Grey and reveal that they can work together to find those responsible for the death of his wife. Some extreme violence ensues.

I know the preceding paragraph is quite a lengthy one, and I usually try to make my movie summaries more concise, but it still doesn't cover the other interesting ideas that the film goes into, which is a huge plus. Whannell does very well indeed with the moments of action and violence, but he is savvy to the fact that he can't expect to keep viewers engaged with just those "trailer shots". So you end up getting a film that nicely hops around between the gleefully visceral and the interesting and thought-provoking ideas threaded throughout (okay, they're not the MOST thought-provoking ideas you could have in a film script but they're certainly a welcome addition to something that could have tried to coast along without them).

Marshall-Green is great in the lead role, spending a lot of the first third of the movie in quite a downbeat mood, understandably once he loses his wife and use of his limbs, and then being astounded and torn by the choices that STEM offers him. Vallejo makes a good impression in the small amount of screentime she has, Harrison Gilbertson is decent as the scientist responsible for the device and operation, and Betty Gabriel is your standard, doggedly determined, police officer who wants to help the hero and eventually starts to piece things together ahead of everyone else. Benedict Hardie is an impressively skilled and callous main villain (helped by the fact that he looks and acts like a cross between Robert Knepper and Jackie Earl Haley) but everyone else encountered by Marshall-Green does good work, even if they are there to be gorily despatched en route to the main target.

It's no surprise that this is such a big step up for Whannell as a director, considering the concept and the fact that it's not beholden to any other entries in a series. The big surprise is that it easily ranks alongside a lot of his other scripts, and may even be one of his best. Not that the dialogue is quotable, or even that good at times, but it uses some broad brush strokes to great effect in the way it explores a range of human emotions, vengeance and morality, and that blurring divide that keeps getting thinner and thinner between tech and those who operate it.

There are a lot of clear influences on display throughout - from The Terminator to the films of David Cronenberg - but Upgrade manages to cram them all in while still feeling very much like its own beast. Which may very well be the best skill that Whannell has in his bag of tricks.

8/10

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Netflix And Chill: The Invitation (2015)

I really need to check out the other titles in the filmography of director Karyn Kusama. Having only seen Jennifer's Body and this one, for now, I seem to quite enjoy her work. Neither of her two films that have passed before my eyes have been perfect but, arguably more importantly, they have been interesting and entertaining.

The Invitation concerns a man (Will, played by Logan Marshall-Green) who heads to a dinner party with his current girlfriend (Kira, played by Emayatzy Corinealdi). The party is being hosted by Eden (Tammy Blanchard) and David (Michiel Huisman). That wouldn't seem to be a premise loaded with tension unease except for the fact that Eden and Will used to be married. Something bad happened to cause them to tear apart from one another. Is the party a reconciliation, or can the events of their past not be overcome so easily?

The main strengths of The Invitation are the lead performances and the script, although Kusama directs with a sure hand, showing great restraint until a finale that tips viewers into, well, something else altogether. The shot choice and visual style helps to emphasise the strange, slightly disorientating, atmosphere of the party, and the affected mindset of a number of the guests who view the events unfolding around them with bewilderment.

Writers Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi are probably better known for their work in the comedy genre but this script shows that they should be able to do more than feed lines to Kevin Hart and Ice Cube (and others). Their work here is effective and efficient, teasing out background details and providing enough highlights throughout to keep viewers from feeling too frustrated or bored as the film takes time to build towards a satisfying conclusion. Yes, some of the plot points are a bit harder to swallow, such as the video that the hosts decide to play for their guests and the house feeling far too tightly locked up for what is supposed to be a relaxed dinner party, but these things are also addressed by other characters in the film. They are odd but viewers have to start wondering how much oddness they would tolerate if they were in the same situation.

Marshall-Green is very good in the lead role, easy to like and sympathise with as he wavers between politeness and lashing out at more disturbing elements of the evening. Corinealdi is equally good, shining in a supporting role that could have easily seen her almost immediately relegated to the background of every scene. She may not be front and centre but she's always there to support her partner, and that stops her from being forgotten as the film goes on. Blanchard and Huisman have a few more quirks to play with, and they both do well to avoid eye-rolling overacting, and John Carroll Lynch is worth mentioning for his small, but vital, role in the proceedings. He gives his usual dependable level of work.

One to watch before you hear or read too much about it, which is my excuse for this review perhaps not being on a par with some of my other reviews (who am I trying to kid, I know I always write crap), The Invitation is a solid thriller that leads you step by step to somewhere you probably won't expect to end up. And that's no bad thing.

7/10

There's A blu ray available here.
Americans can pick it up here.

Devil (2010)

So the devil wants to torture souls and take the worse humans back down to hell, which means staying in a broken elevator with a group and picking them all off one by one. Of course.

Based on a story by M. Night Shyamalan (as part one of the proposed Night Chronicles trilogy detailing supernatural events within a modern day setting), Devil isn't a great movie but it's a slight return to form for the imaginative storyteller.

Having said that, let's not be unfair and forget that this was actually directed by someone else, John Erick Dowdle (who previously handled The Poughkeepsie Tapes and Quarantine), and that the screenplay was developed from Shyamalan's story by Brian Nelson, who previously scripted David Slade's two best movies (to date).

Everyone involved here does a decent job, the cast all play things with serious faces even as things get ever more unbelievable (Chris Messina is a solid lead as the investigating detective and from those stuck in the lift I must mention Geoffrey Arend, who I always enjoy seeing on screen), but it's not too long before the inherent absurdity and minimalism of the central concept begins to undo things.

Inevitably, tension winds down as opposed to up with the decreasing number of suspects who could allegedly be the lord of darkness. It's also a bit of a stretch to see how characters end up linking the, admittedly spooky, events to the legend of the devil coming up to our level to claim people due to get uncomfortably hot in the fiery dwellings down below.

It's not a bad little supernatural thriller but it never really turns into anything great or unmissable. Ironically, as it's also part of the concept, it can never really break free of it's self-imposed confines. Still, I have not been deterred from seeing the next instalments in the series.

6/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Devil-Blu-ray-Chris-Messina/dp/B004ASO99Q/ref=sr_1_2?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1396674137&sr=1-2&keywords=devil