Alan Hogarty

Left the screening early. I guess I wasn't seasoned with the John Wick franchise beforehand to really know, but hoped that with a female lead at the helm it might somehow substantiate the nature of this genre and eventually evolve overall. This was not the case from the portion I saw. Who is this film for? For an action-based flick it's surprisingly devoid of any martial art practicalities and lacks clever use in it's diversity of munitions. There is a Knex-like simplicity to the storyline structure and the character world is generally a B-list compilation of unpalatable or expendable stock characters. It would be nice to encounter a variant of this franchise without every single character the protagonist encounters being a plot-driver for her. It nauseates in a writing style that reads as an early beta spec script. Also very disheartening to watch a genuinely talented actor like Ana De Armas reduced to two-dimensional caricatures like these when she is clearly overqualified to star in a remit of tasteless popcorn fodder. I commend her for not being so derisive to this task in her sustained pursuit of feature film work. Hopefully her continued circulation in blockbuster film will percolate into a better storytelling reach and warrant her opportunities to demonstrate the true talent she always had.

Hands up - really only sat through it on double-time for the A-listers involved and since my Mubi subscription renewed itself by accident. Can't say much for Denis as a Parisian director other than her ability to capture what experimental French cinema demands from the arthouse genre; if that floats your boat then it'll probably appeal to you. Not sure the text works well as a film - as a spectacle and maybe the bones of an amateurish theatre production, sure. But it consistently gave the off-beat feeling of constant dialectic mistranslations that hits hard on the ear for English speaking audiences. Like, why does Monte's daughter Willow have a Transatlantic accent when she's only really been exposed to an American speaker in a literal spacecraft most of her life? Who cares apparently. In that vein, the film calls extensively from audiences for a relentless suspension of disbelief, which I suppose is the whole viewpoint that the movie tries to posture the viewer. It's not clear to me how the characters correspond in this dutch-oven-like dystopia since they consistently spout these contorted and often venal dynamics that even the symbolism of their roles fails to justify. (This is probably just the writers' creative licensees shining through, though it's also probably why this innately avant-garde sci-fi flick made it's final touchdown onto a limited streaming service.) Also, Dibs as this misanthropic YA Mommy Boo-Boo Evil Scientist archetype is just divergent on principle. A woman who believes that her best intentions set for the mission triumph over the rest of her worthless worms who deserve their captivity? Unless she's some kind of animated Mojo-Jojo antagonist or something, her set-up is borderline cartoonish. 3/5 for artistic credit, I suppose; lost in the stars over cohesion of plot, character, narrative ... but probably deliberate to make room for the metaphysical.