Free Guy

Spoiler-free!

What do you get when you remake The Truman Show but update it for modern day by adding elements of Ready Player One, and a bit of the Groundhog Day concept, and make Ryan Reynolds the lead?

You get a summer movie that actually feels like a summer movie.

Here's a shocker: this movie isn't two hours of Reynolds running around in a videogame world making quippy jokes. There's like, a story. And stakes. Remember those? There are characters who have goals, and an antagonist who's in their way. And they're the good guys because their goals are moral, and the antagonist is the bad guy because his goals are immoral, and the story is written so that we'll root for the good guys and have a satisfying sense of resolution if they succeed.

"No duh, Sarah, that's how movies work." Yep. It's weird. I wish I could say I wasn't starstruck by a mere coherent plotline, but here we are. And I know it's not only me. "It's deeper than I expected" is a popular comment on this film. Why? Because it has real-world characters too, with visible character arcs? Because there's an NPC in a videogame who gains self-awareness and freewill and that makes us consider what human value he has? Not exactly mind-blowing stuff here. And yet, it is. Because movies have been without basic things like moral standards, thought, or storytelling coherence for so long that we forgot how essential they are. There's a romantic subplot that's resolved for more reason than "the movie is ending now," and it felt earth-shatteringly original. 

Shawn Levy understands how to assemble a competent film. "Earth-shattering," he is not. Something else is up here.

While I appreciate that this movie returns to a certain filmmaking standard, that's not to say that it's automatically great. The spell only lasted during the runtime, and now I'm left to mull over how exceptionally sad it is that so little could feel like so much. Because sure, the movie feeds us what I've been craving, but in bites, not meal-sized portions. To say Free Guy puts in more effort than recent action-comedy flicks isn't saying anything, really. They have funny guy Ryan Reynolds at their disposal, and they let him do his thing. But too much so. More often it's more like they leave him—to ad-lib quips on top of normal scenes, instead of writing set-up and pay-off jokes for him to elevate. Most of the comedic scenes are not only unnecessary but totally humorless. (Hello Channing Tatum.)

They let Taika Waititi have fun too, and I liked hating the character. But did they think we wouldn't notice he was the bad guy unless they had him spell it out for us? "I love money, I want more money, I don't care about anything but money." We get it. A little subtlety wouldn't kill you, and would ring truer, even for an over-the-top character. And of course, they can't help but wedge in some political talking points, some that clash with the actual intent of the movie. I'd have cut 10-20 minutes from the runtime, mostly in cameos and people watching events from the real world. That got in the way. There are also three separate sequences that feel like the "final battle." One was expensive, one "funny," and one had narrative relevance. Guess which one I'd keep?

Even in action movies the last thing I care about is the action...

My favorite aspect was the real-people characters played by Jodie Comer and Joe Keery. They own the heart of the film, baby-sized as it is. Keery's relevance to the plot was especially a nice surprise. I was fully expecting him to be a side character meant for more jokes only. In fact, I wish there had been more real-life all around. Comer's character is even more essential on paper but doesn't feel it because we see her mostly in the game, where she lacks her real-world personality. We thought that Reynolds' star-power, the humor, and high concept actiony videogame fun was the point, but it's not, not really. It's dressing. Free Guy remembers that better than most, but not quite well enough.

Stranger Things - Season 2

Spoilers!

After a first season that unexpectedly blew up the entertainment world, The Duffer Brothers returned with Stranger Things 2. But they failed in recreating the easy retro wonder and chilling suspense of their original masterpiece, and instead the sequel isn't much more than a cheap imitation of their previous work.

Give me this look if you must, but just know I'm giving it right back.

It watches a like a big-budget stroll down memory lane. The cast returns as tour guides, pointing out dim reflections of season 1, winking and saying, "Remember that? That was pretty magnificent, right? Right?" Yep, this show used to be magnificent, but now it's a jumbled pile of fan service via self-reference and obtrusive Easter Eggs. Before, it was a labor of love. Now, it's a meme. It's Funko Pop Culture, and www.FeedDart.com, and Mom Steve™. They've lost sight of the art, and spent all their efforts appeasing the masses of fans with whatever it was they squealed over before. And it's the same, but MORE! so fans squeal again, but the soul is gone. The Demogorgon got it, probably.

I specifically recall the Duffers promising this wouldn't happen. "We'll write until the story is over, not stretch it out," they said. Well if the story isn't stretched out right now, I need to quit reviewing things, because I know nothing. The first four episodes are about 5% plot, and 95% fan service. Every introduction of a returning character I half expected to be accompanied by an applause track, like fans cheering whenever Kramer burst onto the Seinfeld set. Even Carol gets one of those moments, and then is never shown again. She, Tommy, Powell, and Callahan are insultingly useless and unused, so why are they back in the first place?

They did good keeping Hopper the same I guess, but he loses interest.

Answer: Fan service. This season values fan service over everything, to a level I've never seen before, not in Star Wars or Marvel movies -- or even Sherlock. It's almost like the same people didn't write it at all, but just took the fluffiest fan-fiction they could find, filmed it, and served it up. Well, this fan feels like she's been served -- a pile of rotting table scraps. Easter Eggs might be yummy in the moment, but they're no replacement for substance in entertainment. As Mike would say, we're not dogs; and we deserve to be respected and challenged as intelligent viewers. I will always question why things happen the way they do, especially in a sequel, and I want to find a reason that exists in the narrative of the story, rather than, "Uh, the fans would love it duh!"

Obviously, I'm not a fan of fan service. Having Easter Eggs constantly chucked at my head is unpleasant and distracting. But I do understand the appeal in theory. I just don't understand how anyone could think this stuff is acceptable as character or plot development -- fans or creators. Dustin was a fan-favorite, so now he's got a mom and a cat, and a pet baby Demogorgon (Haha, remember when he was the reasonable one?) and he gets scenes wholly devoted to "comedy" and swearing a lot. No character direction or plot-developing to be seen. But even worse, his character is changed to allow for it.

*rant intensifies*

And fans were upset with Nancy for picking clutch-good-guy Steve over Jonathan last time, so that gets "fixed." I hate this most because they actually subvert season one events to make it happen. No, she didn't wait a month before taking Steve back. She just didn't. They tried to twist it into Jonathan's fault not Nancy's choice, and I call bull on that. The end of their arcs is the place for official romance (if it should happen at all) when they're both the best versions of themselves. It's so cheap to do it now. Nancy's a worse person than she ever was in season 1. And Jonathan is such a misunderstood loner that even the writers don't know what to do with him. They don't fit anymore -- their unexpected connection is gone -- but details like that won't stop the fan-pleasing train!

Anyway Steve's nice now, so he doesn't deserve to be saddled with Nancy either. Instead he's saddled with leading the plot line created for all the useless characters to populate. Like Dustin and Lucas and the new girl Max, and her brother Billy. I really don't get the point of Billy. They apply 80's music to him like he's cool, but we're supposed to hate him, right? All but forgotten are Joyce and Mike. I missed Mike being the main character dearly, but at least his character wasn't ruined. His reunion with El lasted about two seconds though, which is hands down the stupidest thing this show does, out of a plethora of spectacularly stupid things. Sean Astin's Bob is the new Barb, and surprisingly likable, though his overdone, manipulative sucker-punch wasn't nearly as effective as Barb's, in spite of a longer set up.

The Steve/Dustin stuff had charm of course. It was downright cute at times. But totally empty, like everything else.

The worst victim is Mrs. Wheeler: from strict, sensible mom to flustered and dewy-eyed over a 17-year-old boy in two seconds flat, which was ten times creepier than those stupid Demodogs. Ugh. Demodogs. If I could erase one thing it would be them. It took a whole year for them to go from large slug to large slug, then three days to go from large slug to large dog. What? And the Demogorgon rules are completely changed! They're attracted to blood not raw meat, and they hunt alone. By the end there's so many they're not even remotely scary anymore. So animated too, and why oh why do they suddenly look like dogs?

Everything is CGI-ed into oblivion. The scope is so wide it loses focus, and then becomes distracted by the increased budget. Sets that used to be practical -- like the Upside Down -- are now CGI, and the effects aren't even good. They're obviously fake. Some effects in season one were fake-looking too, but used carefully and sparingly, for best possible results. The underground tunnels were mostly practical, and worked the best. The Upside Down inside the school was offensively bad. Overall, the locations just don't feel real anymore, and it kills the nostalgia. Everything lost the organic, non-pop-cultured retro feel. And it's intentional, moment by beautiful moment pacing is gone too.

The big mistake that makes room for little mistakes is that the plot was stretched far too thin.

I think I can see where the story was meant to go though -- before it was distracted by its own popularity. And it gets there in the end, more or less; battered, bruised, and all but destroyed, but technically intact. This base plot line is The Shadow Monster, and Will being infected and controlled by it, then, because he's smart, signaling the way to defeat it. Then El is the only one able to complete the task. El and Will were always the most important characters, so it makes sense that they would be done right. Will is basically the main character now, and shines impressively. He, and the plot he's the center of, spurs all things actually scary, mysterious or strange this season succeeds in.

El almost fails, because she isn't needed until the end, and they take their sweet time getting to her important development. Her relationship with Hopper was bursting with potential, but reduced to the angst-y rebellious teenager and overly-protective father cliche without reasonable explanation. Finally in episode 7 she gets all her good development in a rush. Not a great idea since she's the most fascinating character, and deserves gradual development in a constant spotlight, but at least it was true to her character. She runs away to explore her dark side, but her love for her friends and the truths she learned from them keeps her from falling away, and brings her back, more powerful than ever.

If you think episode 7 should be skipped, I don't know how else to put this: you're WRONG.

Straying from the formula and from Hawkins in episode 7 was the one risk the Duffers took, and for some reason it's the only criticism they're getting from the squealing fans. But El's development there, along with the main Shadow Monster plot line are the only things to save the show from total disaster. It's short and simplified, but on a base level, is all good stuff, and when it's being actively implemented, the show is genuinely good. Not quite incredible or mind-blowing, but good. And whenever characters touch it, they thrive again -- briefly, but without fail. Away from it, the directionless, bloated mess drags them down.

I could go on for twice as long, but suffice to say I was disappointed. The show copies its old self with a cut-and-paste method, and the degraded quality shows painfully. In fleeting moments it matches up and becomes glorious again, but then, like one of Will's visions, it vanishes away. It isn't terrible, granted. But I'm struggling to find anything worthwhile in it that isn't done better in season 1. It's not even scary. The characters are betrayed and forced to be stereotypes. The mood is dishonest, and the emotion clouded with insincere self-reference. The writing and production has dwindled away from immaculate to forgettable and nonsensical.

This photo reflects my disappointment.

Call me a snob if you must, but this is Stranger Things! It used to be jaw-dropping; a gorgeous medley of fear, charm, mystery, and wonder, created with impressive care and devotion. It paid homage to classic films, and rebuilt them into a new, original creature. That tiny little 80's scifi adventure has affected big-budget blockbusters. It has boldly proved that passionate, quality entertainment is still the best commodity. A mere year later, it fails to live up to its own influential standard. It barely even lives up to its title.

5 Favorite Couples Tag

Rules:

Pick one couple from each category

Tagging is optional

Link back to Revealed in Time.

Thanks to Ivy Miranda for creating and tagging me to do this! Time to let my romantic side run loose! I'll steer clear of spoilers for the plots of the movies/TV shows these characters inhabit, but there may or may not be some spoilers concerning the characters, individually and as a couple. Also click the links on the titles to read my reviews of said movies/TV shows! Let me know what you think of my picks in the comments, and participate in the tag if you want to! I'm not going to tag anyone, but would be delighted to see anyone's answers! On to it...

Categories:

1.) Period Drama Couple

2.) Sci-Fi/Fantasy Couple

3.) Superhero Couple

4.) Preferred Couple (from a love triangle) 
5.) Couple Ended Too Soon

Period Drama Couple:

Lizzy Bennet and Mr. Darcy

Pride and Prejudice

 "By you, I was properly humbled. I came to you without a doubt of my reception. You showed me how insufficient were all my pretensions to please a woman worthy of being pleased.” -- Mr. Darcy

 

Film-wise I do prefer the 1995 version (as you may be able to tell...) but this couple is more a credit to Austen's book than anything else. Lizzy and Darcy might even be my most beloved fictional couple of all time. First of all, the fact that I actually love both characters individually is pretty unusual. I love Lizzy's spirit and teasing nature, and how she delights in the ridiculous. And Darcy has that appealing sense of mystery to him, but then once the mystery begins to unravel he only gets more interesting and lovable with his heart of gold. Then together, especially in the novel, they fit together better than any other couple I can think of right now. Darcy is naturally serious and intimidating, but once they are engaged Lizzy gets right to him with her playful teasing and sharp wit in a lovely scene in the book that didn't make it into any film adaptation. They bring each other down from their lofty proud perches while raising up and enhancing their better qualities. A hate-turned-to-love relationship for the ages.

Sci-Fi/Fantasy Couple:

Jim and Selena

28 Days Later...

"That was longer than a heartbeat." -- Jim

This one could have gone to almost any number of couples. Sci-fi and fantasy genres have no shortage of cute couples after all. I decided to go with these two for one main reason: Often with science fiction, the point isn't really the romance. There can be great romances, but most of the time it's the sci-fi itself that really takes front and center. And that's certainly what you'd expect out of a zombie horror film. However, Jim and Selena's relationship ties directly into the theme of the film and becomes one of the film's most prominent features in the end. Jim is new to the zombie world and hasn't become a hardened survivor, but Selena has. She knows what it is to kill loved ones about to turn and we see her do it without hesitation. She tells Jim that she'd do the same to him in a heartbeat. She's become jaded, and survival has become the only thing left in her eyes. However the two develop a cute friendship, and Selena begins to see more than survival in like. And just as Jim completes his journey to becoming a hardened killer to survive, Selena regains her heart. When she thinks Jim is infected (but he isn't) she hesitates. And that says it all.

Superhero Couple:

Peggy Carter and Daniel Sousa

Agent Carter (Season1) (Season 2)

Sousa: "Nothing to say? No quick comeback?"

Peggy: *giant KISS*

Sousa: "...Good point."

This one's maybe a bit of a stretch since neither of these two have actual superpowers, but they are Marvel characters, so I'm gonna go with it! And it's not that I don't like Peggy's brief romance with Captain America in The First Avenger, but we all knew that could never last. From the very first episode of the first season of Agent Carter, I thought that Daniel would be perfect for her and hoped that they'd get together and that he would be confirmed as the husband she refers to in The Winter Soldier. I got one wish granted when they finally happen at the very end of season two. And as much as I would have been all for a third season, everyone knows that a happily ever after doesn't make for good drama, so at least they got that with their future being unexplored. Though I would have loved to see them together and happy a little longer than that brief make-out session -- they were all kinds of adorable even before they were a couple!

 

Preferred Couple (from a love triangle):

Jonathan Byers and Nancy Wheeler

Stranger Things

Jonathan: I guess I'd rather observe people than... you know...
Nancy: Talk to them.
Jonathan: I know. It's weird.
Nancy: No!
Jonathan: No, it is! It's just, sometimes... people don't really say what they're really thinking. But when you capture the right moment, it says more.

This category is the reason I took so long to make this list. All the love triangles I knew of I was tired of (like The Hunger Games) or weren't really fair, having a clear correct winner. But then I saw Stranger Things. Jonathan (left), Nancy, and Steve make up a very well-balanced and amazingly realistic triangle and are the most interesting side plot of an incredibly interesting show. Jonathan is the weird, unpopular loner who's too busy trying to be the man of his house to engage in high school social drama, and Nancy is a nice girl well on her way to becoming a grade-A jerk, dating the charming but wild and worldly Steve. But when she and Jonathan are thrown together by certain plot events, the friction between the two quickly turns to sparks of romance. Nancy leaves the path to becoming a popular snob, and Jonathan opens up to her. They bring out the best in each other, and there are so many sweet moments to appreciate. But, in a wacky twist, their friendship opens Steve's eyes to his less-than-commendable ways, and he improves his character as well, with a surprisingly awesome redemptive turn. And suddenly there's no clear frontrunner. Jonathan is my favorite character on the show (or in the top two, at least) so he's my pick, but really the two sides are so evenly balanced that I may be swayed in the future as plot and characters develop. We'll see where season 2 takes them!

Couple Ended Too Soon:

Morse and Joan Thursday

Endeavour

Morse: "Well, there are coppers and there are coppers."

Joan: "And what kind are you, then?"

Morse: "I'm the kind that sees young ladies safely to their door."

Poor Morse and his relationship woes! I've been shipping Joan (the daughter of Inspector Thursday, Morse's boss) with Morse ever since their first meeting -- as I'm sure we were meant to -- and in the most resent season we got as close as I fear we ever will concerning them. That is of course, because Morse has eternally bad luck with love -- to his increasing endearment, and in spite of his being one of the biggest hopeless romantics of all time. And Joan seems like a perfect match for him; a young girl in need of a direction and an influence, and whenever she is influenced by Morse she doesn't seem so lost. And Morse always needs someone to care for, and Joan almost constantly provides that for him. The both of them obviously have crushes cultivating, but Morse doesn't do anything about it for so long. Who knows why; maybe he's scared of Inspector Thursday. But when a life-changing event occurs that prompts Morse to finally declare his love, that same event drives Joan further away than she's ever been. Over as soon as it began. Just another step in the steep staircase of Morse's tragic love life. 

Stranger Things

Spoiler-free.

Stranger Things is a Netflix original series created by brothers Matt and Ross Duffer. A sci-fi mystery set in 1983 suburban Indiana focusing on the disappearance of a neighborhood kid, Will Byers (Noah Schnapp). The local police Chief Jim Hopper (David Harbour), Will's mother Joyce (Winona Ryder), his brother Jonathan (Charlie Heaton), and geeky friends Mike (Finn Wolfhard), Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo), and Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin) all look for him in their own separate but interweaving missions.

The three friends led by Mike also discover and befriend a girl called Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) with buzzed hair and strange abilities who ran away from a secret research facility run by an unsettling doctor (Matthew Modine). Slowly these few, along with Mike's older sister Nancy (Natalia Dyer) begin to realize something sinister is haunting their small town. Where is Will Byers? And to what lengths will they go to get him back?

Here we have the young protagonists Lucas, Mike, Eleven, and Dustin. Dustin is the greatest. "MIKE! I FOUND THE CHOCOLATE PUDDING!"

It's incredibly unusual for this to happen, but I went into this having never even heard of it before. I saw it on Netflix, saw that it had five stars, saw the 80's style poster and the write-up, and that's all I needed. And after the first episode I could have sat there and watched all eight of them in a row -- which is what I did for my second viewing! This show is something quite amazing, and it starts and ends with the 80's vibe. No cell phones getting in the way of the plot really is a wonderful thing, but this goes way beyond that. It's 80's inspiration goes right down to the core, and is what makes this show stand out so spectacularly.

Soft synthesizer music is the score (whenever the occasional 80's classic isn't being featured) which complements the suspense to a T. It's also an effortlessly sci-fi sound. The three friends evoke a Stand by Me/Super 8/Goonies type dynamic with their easy chemistry and camaraderie. They are a delight and a riot. And their neighborhood reminds me of my childhood home (though I was born in the 90's) so I often got a whiff of personal nostalgia to boot. The show also borrows and pays homage to a large mishmash of elements from classic and cult films of the 80's, like that of Steven King and John Carpenter; and Spielberg on the less dark and edgy side. And there's no shortage of 80's pop and geek culture nods and references, from Lord of the Rings to Star Wars to Dungeons and Dragons, to many winkingly significant movies posters.

The older teens, Jonathan, Nancy, and Steve (Joe Keery).

Science fiction, mystery and horror are the most prominent genres, but whenever the show dips its toe into anything else -- romance, adventure, teenage comedy, (angsty teenage drama), chase thrillers, and most importantly plain old drama -- they are all done with the same amount of devotion given to the rest. Sometimes they're mixed, to striking results. Whatever Stranger Things does, it's always the best thing it does. At times there's something like seven plot lines going on, and normally in a show doing that, I would only be really invested in one, just waiting for my favorite to come back around. Here, no matter where we were and what we were being shown the mystery was always slowly being pieced together and kept me constantly glued to the screen.

It helped, of course, that each plot line contained at least one great character that was absolutely worth getting behind and investing interest in. That was possible, because this show is just as full of great characters as it is with characters at all. As every character serves a purpose, every character is fleshed-out and has a journey to complete and obstacles to overcome. I wish I could explain what I loved about each character and their journeys, but since I'm trying not to spoil anything... Let's just say that Hopper is the best lovable grump; the toothless Dustin is a genius and awesome; Winona Rider gives a great performance as the distraught and desperate mother; and Millie Bobby Brown steals every scene and every moment she's in. But everyone is fantastic -- actors and characters alike. And even the smallest characters get memorable personalities and don't feel as though they're only there to further the plot.

Chief Hopper. If any one person carries the show -- which they don't, but if they did -- it'd be him. "Mornings are for coffee and contemplation."

As great as this show is as a whole -- what with the way everything works together in that broad, complex weave -- it's in the individual moments and specific elements that its brilliance is found. Moment, by thrilling, terrifying moment is how this show wins you. The filming style is hauntingly beautiful, and full of foreshadowing; individual shots are framed so cleverly, and everything is edited together with incredible precision. And I was surprised at how effectively beauty and wonder was used to enhance the fear and dread. The way this story was written and presented is masterful, and each moment is so brilliantly crafted to amaze and scare and to tell its story with otherworldly effectiveness. Normally scary is not my thing -- but this is. This knows how to makes the scares invaluable to the entertainment quality.

For quality horror, you must first draw the viewer in, so they're invested in characters and involved in the story when the scary parts come around, and I was fully immersed within seconds of starting an episode. It grabs you and doesn't let go for even a second. Then scares are not cheap jump-scares or gore, but come through an elegant and carefully cultured tone of suspense that manifests in brief moments that leave your eyes wide and your heart racing -- and me clutching a pillow in gleeful agony. Never relenting on suspense, never a moment where your nerves aren't in tattered frays. But the best kind of tattered frays you could ever hope for. And of course there is the occasional but very effective moment of relief via comedy. Actually there's a lot of quite epic but subtle comedy too, that I didn't notice so much until my second viewing.

And finally Joyce. Until you watch this you will never know the unbelievable mixture of wonder and horror that colored Christmas lights can evoke!

When I started it I was hoping that it would be an anthology series (it's a great name for an anthology series!) but it's not. But I've come to terms with that -- I read in an interview that The Duffer Brothers plan to quit telling the story when it's done, and not drag it out, and that makes me very hopeful. As long as they can keep this great thing going with the same loving dedication, I'll be delighted and thrilled to stick around in good old Hawkins, IN until the story is told to completion.

So, basically, this show is ideal viewing for anyone who doesn't hate sci-fi or the 80's. But if you actually love science fiction and its retro heyday... this is a magnificent treat that is new and original, yet inviting and familiar. Stories don't get much more satisfying and perfectly fitted to the niche than this one, with its small town of ordinary folk going up against incredible, mysterious, and terrifying forces with nothing but their bikes and their brains and their brave determination. Stranger Things could hardly be more dated to the 80's if it were actually made in the 80's, but, as with the best films of that era, when loaded with heart and told with such personal care, some stories just can't help but feel ageless.