The Northman - Cheap Thoughts

For nothing else Robert Egger commits to the bit, whatever work of supernatural historical fiction he is working on, it feels like you are being transported back to that time and place. The Northman is the latest in this line, with vicious, animalistic Vikings who seek bloodshed, honour and kinship. Half the time you will not understand the words being spoken due to their archaic dialect, and yet every emotion is felt with such ferocity, everything that needs to be understood will be.

This commitment doesn’t just lie within the violence, but within every fibre of its being. The cultures being represented, the dialogue being spoken, the outfits and make-up on the actors. There is no shame even in the more ridiculous parts because why should there be? This may be a film being shown to 21^st century audiences but it does not act like it is. This is a retelling of these people and their rituals and their lifestyle, it shall not compromise itself for your modern sensibilities, either come along for the ride or get off.

That being said, the plot itself is relatively easy to follow even if the presentation does not always act like it is. It is a simple revenge tale supposedly based off of real world events, but has been adapted and influenced multiple times across the past thousand years many people can catch on simply due to osmosis. If you’ve seen Hamlet, The Count of Monte Cristo or The Lion King, chances are you will understand this plot with ease, and can simply be carried by the immaculate vibes of the production.

To list everything good about The Northman is to simply list everything about it, every actor gives wonderful performances, no one holds back, they bare their bodies and souls quite literally for the sake of the film. The visuals are gloriously spectacular, the camera is slow and methodical for most of the picture, it is unnerving with its movements, and yet has such an aggression during the action scenes, there is a dynamism to every frame, in simple terms it is a very cool looking movie even when it’s not trying to be.

It is rare a treat for someone like Eggers to be given such a large film, it is an epic in every sense of the word and few films are like it. Many historical epics still feel the need to modernise themselves for the sake of audiences desires, which is certainly not a bad thing, there is a place for them, but to have such an authentic feeling experience on the big screen on a large budget is a treat that should not be taken lightly. Egger’s prior films also had this authenticity, but they were on the smaller scale forced onto them if they wished to exist.

The Northman combines the best of all features. A basic plot, a unique vision and a strong emotional thread to carry the film. Those three things fused offer one hell of a picture, you’re sure to leave the film with your adrenaline pumping and ready to fight your mortal enemy by the gates of Hel, and if you don’t have a mortal enemy, by Odin’s beard you’ll wish you did.

-Danny

The Lost City - Cheap Thoughts

It’s hard to not route for a comedic adventure flick. They exist purely to entertain the eyes of every family member. They are harmless, light-hearted and joyful. They’re also somewhat of a rarity these days as audiences can allow their irony poisoned minds and cynical perspective to want to bully and mock them, despite them being one of the oldest genres cinema has to offer. The Lost City is not entirely immune to this, there is a level of self-awareness and winking to the audience as if to say we’re all in on the joke, but the film shines best when it doesn’t rely on that. When it allows the natural comedy and charisma of its leads hold up the film, which is what they do. It’s rather impressive considering where Channing Tatum started out in his career where Hollywood wanted to make him the next cool and badass pretty boy, and yet he truly shines best when he gets to play the imperfect yet enigmatic golden retrievers, and this film sees him as both of those. Lampooning his initial presentation yet highlighting that likeable goofball energy he exudes in works such as the Jump Street films or Hail Ceasar! Which is not to say he doesn’t work great in other roles such as Magic Mike and Foxcatcher, but it’s clear this is his peak as the well-meaning, clumsy himbo.

The same can be said for Daniel Radcliffe who is eating it up as the villain, he has spent the last decade riding that Harry Potter money and committing himself to weird, loud and inscrutable characters across a variety of films. In this case the 2-Dementional adventure serial bad guy, a shallow egomaniac who behaves more like a spoilt brat than a business tycoon and Radcliffe is enjoying every moment of it.

To save Sandra Bullock for last might make it seem like she brings the least to the film and while this is technically true as she acts as the straight man against these grown children, it should never be undervalued the talents of a good straight man. Bullock has been playing these type of characters for several decades now, she slips into them with ease and she is always a delight to watch on screen.

Beyond the leads there is not much else to the film, it has a standard story, basic visuals and sometimes groan worthy supporting cast, but it is aware of what it is, sometimes too much so. It is light, fluffy entertainment that shall be consumed for brief joy and moved on with. It is a sugary snack of a film, which we need from time to time.

-Danny

Sonic The Hedgehog 2 - Cheap Thoughts

It’s strange how audiences can book end a pandemic between the two Sonic the Hedgehog movies. This is despite the fact the pandemic has not actually ended but everyone is acting like it is cause we’re all bored of it and are pretending everything has gone back to normal. With that being said, has Sonic the Hedgehog 2 learnt anything in that time and changed their approach to telling these stories? Well, yes but…that’s a very soft yes.

For one thing the franchise no longer seems as afraid to commit to the brand as it was in the prior film, the majority of the focus is on the Sonic characters and the film originals (I.e., The Humans) receive far less screentime than they did in the prior instalment. To be fair this is an issue that has played the Sonic franchise across all media, they never seem to catch on that-excluding Robotnik-no one cares about human characters in Sonic, that’s not what they want to see, they want to see cartoon animals with superpowers go on adventures and fight each other, which this film certainly delivers on. Infamously the original film had an awful character design for a “realistic Sonic” and only after fan backlash did they commit to a more faithful design, but it was clear it was too late to change the rest of the film to fit a more cartoonish tone. This time round we mainly follow Sonic (Ben Shwartz) and Tails (Colleen O'Shaughnessey) go on a globe trotting adventure against Knuckles (Idris Elba) and a redesigned and more faithful Dr Robotnik (Jim Carrey), with the humans intentionally being sent off on vacation to be absent for most of the picture.

So with this lesson seemingly being learnt, why on Earth did the creators decide to commit most of the 3^rd act to following exclusively the human characters? Had they really not learnt their lesson? No one cares about whatshernames wedding or the whatchamacallit cop, they are not interesting characters, and they certainly don’t offer anything in terms of legitimate comedy, when all they do is pull silly faces and make pop-culture references. An extended sequence of Rachel (Natasha Rothwell) who if you need to be reminded is the protagonists parental figure’s sister…so as deep into tertiary characters as you can get, has a dedicated 10 minutes of the film exclusively following her, her wedding and her relationship, when none of the actual main characters are present, and this has nothing to do with the main plot, was there no one in the room to point out in this 2 hour movie that literally not a single audience member gives a damn about this character or their relationships?

Of course this is not the only unfunny sequence of the film, because the entirety of the film lacks any sense of comedic talent being present in the writing process, where nearly every single joke consists of solely pop-culture references. Not making any witty observations or pastiches, but just acknowledging when something is like Batman, or Ghostbusters, or name-dropping Oprah or Dwayne Johnson because people recognise these things and that is the entirety of the joke. The blame here is entirely on the writers because much of this cast have done good comedy work before, and the problems with the script don’t stop there.

Yet again the writers feel the need to baby their audience by spelling out every lesson, arc or change in case the 3-year-old on their iPad was confused on what was happening. Early in the film Sonic’s arc is established of trying to become a hero, but to do so he will have to make a truly selfless action, which they refer to as “his moment” and several times in the film when any progress in his arc is made, he points it out by verbalising “This is my moment”. Seriously, show even the slightest bit of respect for your audience, they will understand what a character arc is, it’s a plot for a Sonic the Hedgehog movie, it is very basic and easy to understand and predict, they did not need it spelling out for them.

To keep it blunt, as it’s what this film would prefer, Sonic The Hedgehog 2 is…better than the original. The focus is mainly on the right characters, the tone and story are better suited for it, but better does not translate to good, and unless they actually get some competent writers behind these films I don’t think they ever will be, because they seem contempt with offering some of the laziest, pandering and unfunny scripts possible for these films.

-Danny