Monthly Archives: May 2024

Movie Reviews

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga – Review

It’s been a wild ride through the wastelands for the Mad Max franchise.  Began in 1979, Australian filmmaker George Miller created an icon with his shoestring budgeted original film.  And every movie since, he has upped the ante, making his world more dystopian and mythic in process.  The franchise helped to make a star out of Mel Gibson, and both he and Miller would continue to build their world with the even zanier sequels The Road Warrior  (1982) and Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985).  After Thunderdome, Miller spent a long while figuring out where he wanted to take the adventures of Max Rockatansky next.  It would be another 30 years before the Wasteland would be seen once again on the big screen.  In that time, Miller spent his years dabbling in more family friendly fare like Babe: Pig in the City (1998) and Happy Feet (2006), but all the while he was continuing to brainstorm his next move with Mad Max.  Entering the 2010’s, he finally found the road he wanted to take, and he got Warner Brothers to bankroll his bold new vision for this classic action franchise.  But, there were going to have to be some changes.  For one, Mel Gibson had aged out of the part over the 30 plus years, in addition to a number of scandals that had diminished his star power.  In addition, the story would be less focused on continuing Max’s ongoing story and instead would be geared more around building the world around him into something far more epic and surreal.  It would still be a Mad Max movie, but it was about far more than one man’s journey.  And in particular, George Miller found himself becoming more intrigued about the possibilities involving a wholly new original character named Furiosa.  As we would soon discover, this new heroine would be the shining star of a new future for the Mad Max franchise.

The 30 year wait proved to be worth it, as Mad Max; Fury Road not only made a healthy gross at the box office but was also critically acclaimed as well.  Many even began to herald it as one of the greatest action films of all time, and it accomplished the unexpected task of earning 10 Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, of which it ended up winning and impressive six total.  As far as action films go, Fury Road became a new high water mark for the industry, with audiences being wowed by it’s impressive stunt work and practical effects, as well as just the overall creative world-building throughout.  To create the film, Miller and his team spent months filming in the remote Namibian desert, which allowed them to create these massive scale stunts in a remote and desolate environment on a scale unseen before.  It very much invigorated the franchise in the way that George Miller had hoped for.  In addition, audiences loved the performances from the leads, with Tom Hardy filling the role of Max adequately and easily helping audiences get over the replacement of Mel Gibson in the role.  Charlize Theron brought an intensity to the role of Furiosa that made the character an instant favorite for both longtime fans and new ones as well.  It’s very clear that Furiosa and Mad Max are both the main character’s of Fury Road’s story and that Miller spent as much time figuring out her narrative as much as he had his iconic hero.  During all those 30 years in the process of making Fury Road, Miller had also spent years developing Furiosa’s backstory, including going so far as to writting a full draft of a movie that would have centered around her.  In his words, he wanted to fully understand her character before he made her such a central part of his new direction in the franchise.  After seeing Fury Road succeed as well as it did, Miller decided it was time to take another look at his script for a Furiosa movie, and he suddenly became interested in bringing it to the big screen as well.   It would take nearly another decade for that project to also become a reality, but now we George Miller making his return once again to the franchise that define his directorial career with this prequel adventure, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga.

The story begins many years before the events of Fury Road, where we find a young Furiosa (Alyla Browne) living in the peaceful oasis known as the Green Place.  Outside of the Green Place is a vast desert known as the Wasteland, where the remnants of human civilization are scattered across as warring nomadic tribes.  One such tribe of motorcycle riding marauders invade the Green Place and kidnap Furiosa.  They take her back to their camp, where she meets their fearsome leader, Dementus (Chris Hemsworth).  Her mother, Mary Jabassa (Charlee Fraser) tries to save her from the camp, but the valiant attempt at a rescue ultimately fails, and Dementus ends up executing her in front of Furiosa, an act that the young girl would hold a grudge over for many years after.  Eventually, Dementus and his gang arrive in a part of the Wastelands that is lorded over by a man named Immortan Joe (Lachy Hulme), who resides in the fortress called The Citadel.  Immortan Joe’s forces, including the cult like faction know as the War Boys, prove too overwhelming for Dementus, but the ambitious madman decides to make more trouble by capturing the important stronghold known as Gastown, which supplies The Citadel with all it’s fuel.  Dementus and Immortan Joe strike a truce, but part of the deal involves Furiosa remaining within The Citadel as a future bride for one of Joe’s sons, Scrotus (Josh Helman) and Erectus (Nathan Jones).  Furiosa initially escapes her new captors, and lives anonymously in The Citadel, eventually becoming one of the mechanics.  Grown up Furiosa (Anya Taylor-Joy) eventually develops a partnership with The Citadel’s top rig driver, Praetorian Jack (Tom Burke) who helps her gain the skills she’ll need to survive in such a dangerous world.  But in all this time, her heart is set on two main goals, to get her revenge on Dementus and return home.

There’s no doubt that following up the success of Mad Max: Fury Road was going to be hard, even with George Miller still firmly holding the reigns.  Fury Road is considered an all time classic and one of the most celebrated movies of the last decade.  Still, you can feel the desire with George Miller to tell this story in particular, leaving out the namesake action hero we all know in favor of exploring someone else’s tale in this same world.  It’s a risk to be sure, but also one that does fit within the greater narrative that Miller wants to tell.  Furiosa was undoubtedly the breakout star of Fury Road, and many fans agreed that she was a character capable of carrying a film all on her own.  So, with the work already done before cameras even rolled on Fury Road, Miller had the story he needed to deliver on the promise of Furiosa’s own movie.  Now, going into this film myself, my expectations were perhaps a bit different than most other people.  It may shock you, but I’ve been a bit more lukewarm on my opinions of Fury Road.  I certainly liked it a lot, but I fell a little short of believing it to be this unassailable masterpiece that stands among the greatest movies of all time.  To me, it was an above average action film that certainly impressed me with it’s creativity and craft, but not much else.  For me, I found it a bit light on story, or at least lacking in a story that I could latch onto and make me want to revisit it countless times after.  So, heading into Furiosa, my expectations were certainly not low, but were also hedge a bit, and after seeing the movie, I’d say that it hit about where I thought it would.  Just like Fury Road, I found it to be an impressively mounted and fairly entertaining movie, but nothing that is going to stand out to me as a masterpiece of cinema either.  It is neither a step down from Fury Road, nor does it exceed expectations.  It accomplished what it needed to do and nothing more.

It will be interesting to see the overall reactions that will follow this movie.  I imagine most people will react to it the same way that they did with Fury Road, because if there is one thing that George Miller certainly hasn’t lost his touch with it’s his ability to film an engaging action sequence.  But, there may be many out there that will come away disappointed and that’s solely because they hold Fury Road in such high regard and expected too much out of this follow-up.  One thing that may drive some of the division on this movie is that it is very much a different kind of movie than Fury Road.  Fury Road by all accounts is one long action sequence stretched across the entire length of the movie, which was the most thrilling aspect of the movie for many people, but for others like me it was what made the story feel a little flimsy.  In this regard, I feel like Furiosa improved on it’s predecessor a bit, because here we actually get a deeper storyline that actually explores the world of the Wasteland much more, including telling us more about the cultures that have formed in this dystopian world.  There are still some impressively mounted action set pieces, but they are supported by more character developing moments.  We even get more involved back stories with Fury Road characters like Immortan Joe and his followers, making them much more interesting as a result.  Though strangely enough, while so much more of the world gets richer detail in Furiosa, the main character herself kind of gets overlooked in the story.  I feel like George Miller used all of his best character development for Furiosa in Fury Road, and gives little to work with in this film.  She really has nothing more to her character than just acting tough and being a survivor.  We know her motivations, but Miller doesn’t give us any time to see what’s going on inside her mind; at least not as much in this film as he did with Fury Road.

Despite the lack of character in the way that Furiosa is written, she still manages to make an engaging protagonist thanks to Anya-Taylor Joy’s intense performance.  She certainly has big shoes to fill, as Charlize Theron was so iconic in the role.  But what makes Ms. Joy’s performance work so well is how she acts non-verbally in the movie.  Furiosa is actually a character of very few words in the movie, but with the expressions that Joy can deliver through her very expressive face, as well as cold-dead stares through those large distinctive eyes, she makes Furiosa a very intimidating presence.  She also holds her own in much of the film’s complex action set pieces.  You can tell this was a demanding role for her physically, even with the aid of stunt performers.  Going back to the early days of Mad Max, Miller always wanted his actors to be as involved in the action as much as possible, from Mel Gibson all the way up to Tom Hardy.  It’s a testament to Anya-Taylor Joy that she does as much on-screen stunts as she does on this film.  She also is backed up by an excellent ensemble of the best Aussie character actors in the business, many of whom have been in George Miller’s circle for years and have appeared in a number of his other movies.  Credit certainly is due to Lachy Hulme who took over the iconic role of Immortan Joe from the late Hugh Keays-Byrne, and doesn’t miss a beat.  But, the whole film truly belongs to Chris Hemsworth who creates a scene-stealling iconic performance as the villainous Dementus.  He delivers one of the most cartoonish villains in recent memory and he is just a blast to watch through the entire film.  It seemed like George Miller just told him to ratchet up Chris’ Australian accent to 1000% and he went to Crocodile Dundee and beyond.  Dementus is such a great character to watch and Hemsworth’s performance is worth the price of admission alone.

One other thing that I liked about this movie is that Miller is expanding upon the world that he has built for this franchise.  His Wasteland feels even bigger and more epic than we’ve ever seen before.  We do revisit the iconic location of The Citadel from Fury Road, which we see slightly more of in this movie.  But, Miller also finally shows us locations that were hinted at in the previous movie, but are now fully realized here in Furiosa.  In this movie, we finally see Gastown and the Bullet Farm, which are incredible set pieces in their own right. They also help to give the film a grander sense of scale that seems to find George Miller at his most ambitious level to date.  Fury Road was certainly big, but not particularly expansive in it’s world building.  The one thing that I do think Fury Road does have over Furiosa is that the action sequences had a bit more authenticity to them.  There was a lot of DIY action filmmaking going on in Fury Road, with the film accomplishing a lot in camera.  In Furiosa, in order to create this more expansive view of the world, Miller also makes more use of CGI to create the action set pieces.  Most of it still looks good, but you do still lose some of that remarkable practicality in the process.  I do like however the way that Miller’s style comes through in the editing of the film.  There are several moments where Miller will suddenly speed up the film itself on certain shots, which creates this fun disorienting effect.  He uses this a lot especially with zoom in on his characters when they are behind the driver’s seat of the the many different hot rod vehicles in the film.  It’s something that he carried over from Fury Road, and it’s nice to see it still being utilized well here.  It definitely shows that Miller has a lot of trust in his crew, as many of them are returning from their work on Fury Road, including Oscar winners like costume designer Jenny Beavan, production designers Colin Gibson and Lisa Thompson, as well as the nominated Visual Effects team and composer Tom Holkenborg (aka Junkie XL), all of whom once again deliver the goods here.  Even while a lot of things still look and feel the same, I do appreciate that this movie is not simple retread of the Fury Road formula.  Many people returned to work with George Miller again on this film, but they also did their best to add something new to the mix too.

Overall, like Fury Road there is a lot to admire about Furiosa, but it also doesn’t rise to the level of all time greats, at least in my opinion.  In general, I see Furiosa as a slight improvement, but it’s also a movie that feels less focused than it’s predecessor.  Furiosa comes pretty close to feeling a bit bloated at times with it’s lengthy 2 1/2 hour run time, making it by far the longest movie in the franchise.  Fury Road’s story may not have been a deep one, but it was a tightly constructed 2 hour story.  At the same time, I do appreciate that George Miller uses that extra time to give us a bigger scope of the world itself.  There are some spectacularly mounted sequences in this movie that Miller gives the right amount of time to.   The movie also features one of my favorite villainous characters in quite a while with Chris Hemsworth’s gloriously demented role as Dementus. Again, the movie is worth seeing just for him alone.  Anya-Taylor Joy does a pretty great job too in the title role, though I feel like the best Furiosa moments still belong with Charlize’s performance in Fury Road.  While it may not be what I consider to be the peak of action filmmaking (honestly I’ve been more impressed recently with the John Wick and Dune movies in that regard) it is still something that I would recommend seeing, just for the big screen spectacle of it all.  If you were a huge Fury Road fan, I would imagine that this film will deliver what you’re looking for.  Just don’t go in expecting the same kind of movie.  Furiosa is a different animal of a movie, one focused more on character and world-building than action set pieces, so hedge your expectations around that.  For me, it delivered about what I was expecting.  For a more lukewarm appreciator of the Mad Max franchise, I generally was pleased by what I saw, but it’s not going to be one of those movies that I’m going to necessarily revisit over and over again.  But one thing that I do find enormously impressive is that at the age of 79, George Miller is still delivering massively entertaining action films on this kind of scale without losing any of his edge.  He’s continuing to hold action film-making to a high standard, and even teaching the younger generation a thing or two.  For a veteran filmmaker like him, it’s inspiring to see him continue to be a fury road warrior at a time when most other filmmakers fall off into the far horizon.

Rating: 8/10

What the Hell Was That?

What the Hell Was That? – Les Miserables (2012)

Movie musicals can be very much a coin flip at the box office.  Many times some of the biggest flops in Hollywood history have been stage to screen adaptations, while at other times they have been a box office savior.  We’ve seen cases where a musical gone wrong can destroy a filmmakers reputation, like how Gene Kelley stopped directing after the disastrous production of Hello Dolly (1969).  But then you have The Sound of Music (1965), which helped to pull 20th Century Fox out of the financial hole they dug for themselves after the loses from Cleopatra (1963).  A lot of the time, movie musicals are susceptible to the ebbs and flows of audience tastes more than any other genre in film-making.  For the longest time, movie musicals had been considered box office poison after the late 60’s crash in the genre, and it wouldn’t be until the new millennium when it would start to come back in a big way.  The return of musicals came about with the box office and awards success of both Moulin Rouge (2001) and Chicago (2002), with the latter earning a Best Picture win at the Oscars, the first since 1968’s Oliver.  This sudden renewed interest in the genre stirred Hollywood to look to Broadway once again for musicals that were ripe for adaptation.  Even as Hollywood had abandoned the musical for decades, Broadway was in it’s heyday, churning out mega-hit shows that became famous the world over, without ever needing to make the jump to the big screen like they had in Hollywood before.  Once it became profitable to make movie musicals again, the floodgates were finally opened up to get these popular stage musicals translated to the big screen.  But, as we’ve seen many times before, what played well on the stage may not necessarily translate the same way on film.  The quarter century has seen a few Broadway shows successfully get the big screen treatment, including the aforementioned Chicago, as well as Dreamgirls (2006) and Sweeny Todd; The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007).  But at the same time, we’ve also seen many examples of musicals that fall flat when they make the jump to cinema.

Perhaps one of the harshest falls from stage to screen is the long anticipated 2012 translation of the musical Les Miserables.  Les Miserables should have been a no-brainer adaptation for a movie musical.  The source material is one of the most famous works of literature, the 1862 novel of the same name by Victor Hugo, which on it’s own has spawned numerous non-musical film adaptations.  It was translated into a musical in France by the team of lyricist Herber Kretzmer and composer Claude-Michel Schönberg, before eventually being picked up by musical theater mega-producer Cameron Mackintosh for the London West End, and then eventually on it’s way to Broadway.  Once it made it’s way to the Great White Way, it became a smash hit, eventually running continuously for over 16 years, plus numerous revivals.  It’s also got one of the most profitable touring productions in musical history, having been seen by audiences all over the world.  So, why did it take nearly 30 years for there to be a movie adaptation for this legendary Broadway show?  It wasn’t for the lack of trying.  The musical languished in development hell for decades, being passed around from studio to studio and through a slew of interested directors, including Alan Parker and Bruce Beresford.  What caused so many pauses in development was due to struggle to fill the extensive ensemble with the right actors.  Cameron Mackintosh, who was in charge of the movie rights, wanted the musical to feature a cast worthy of the epic material.  But considering the fact that movie stars and Broadway performers don’t always align given the different kinds of disciplines, it was difficult to get a cast of actors who could do justice to the material and bring in the box office appeal as well.  It also mattered who was going to be behind the camera as well.  It took a while, but the musical eventually got the momentum it needed thanks to the renewed popularity of the genre in the 2000’s.  But, once cameras got rolling, the dreams of a perfect translation to the screen would ultimately prove fleeting.

One of the most baffling decisions in the film’s development was in giving the directorial reigns to Tom Hooper; a filmmaker with no background in music whatsoever.  Hooper had made a name for himself as a television director, first on the BBC and then eventually on HBO, with acclaimed mini-series like Elizabeth I (2005) and John Adams (2008).  He won accolades for his cinematic debut The Damned United (2009), but it was his follow-up that would truly put him on the map in Hollywood.  The King’s Speech (2010) became a surprise powerhouse during it’s awards season run, and would eventually take home Best Picture at the Oscars, as well as a surprise Best Director win for Hooper.  With his Oscar darling now on his resume, Hooper was prime to take on any prestige project he wanted.  And at this time, the team in charge of the current development for Les Miz was looking for their director.  Hooper, for all accounts, is a competent director.  He delivers his movies and TV episodes on time and up to that point on budget.  Given that he had this workman quality about him, it seemed to the producers that he might be a good choice to undertake this grandiose project, given that he had the prestige without the baggage.  But, despite having some critical success, nothing about his background would tell you that he could make a musical.  Hooper’s style is very grounded in reality, which has made him a success at directing historical dramas, because of his ability to capture the look and feel of a bygone time period.  You could say that would work for a strait forward adaptation of Les Miserables, akin closer to the source novel.  But he was being assigned to that kind of movie; he was going to be making a musical.  And musicals are far from grounded.  By the very nature of characters breaking out into song musicals exist in this kind of heightened reality.  And as a result, you can’t just film it like another period drama.  That is where the fault in the hiring of Tom Hooper lies; he was a wrong fit for the material.

The big problem with Tom Hooper’s adaptation of Les Miserables is that it feels small.  On the stage, the musical takes on this operatic magnitude, with the actors signing to the rafters and set design, as abstract as it may be in some productions, evoking the grandeur of the story it is telling.  Now, you can see that plenty of money was spent on the production.  There are lavish sets built to replicate France in the 1820’s and the costume design is period accurate as well, and owing very much to the inspiration of the original musical and the original book illustrations.  But, Hooper never gives us a good look at any of it.  His camera is held in tight on his actors, shot low and handheld like he was making a documentary.  It may be that he is trying to give the movie a visceral feel by putting the audience in the middle of the action, but it robs the story as well as the musical numbers of their impact.  Movie musicals should have a grandiosity to them, as by their nature they are meant to be spectacles.  That’s why musical numbers are often referred to as show stopping moments, because they stand on their own as big showpieces.  Hooper doesn’t seem to get that, and all of his musical numbers are filmed in this same actor focused way.  That may well work for one or two numbers to help set them apart.  Many have praised the one-shot take of the iconic “I’ve Dreamed a Dream” number within the film, but that song would have had an even bigger impact if it didn’t look like every other song in the movie.  The best movie musicals make all their songs feel distinct, with different stylistic choices used to set them apart.  But, Hooper’s direction doesn’t give the songs a chance to stand out.  And the lavish set pieces just kind of blend into the background as the actors are focused on with all their close-ups.  Most of the movie is really demanding wide angle shots, allowing the audience to see how epic this story really is.  The most absurd missed opportunity is with how the barricades are visualized.  Once one of the most mind-blowing set pieces on the Broadway stage just feels puny and insignificant when realized in the movie.  The barricades should feel imposing and instead it looks like it could come crashing down without much effort.  It’s a perfect example of how much Hooper missed the mark in bringing the musical to the big screen.

Of course, another make or break element of any movie musical is the effectiveness of the ensemble cast.  Les Miserables is not a musical that you should casually fill with any movie star.  The roles are demanding and require actors with powerful voices to carry the complex tunes.  For the movie, the casting in general is a mixed bag.  In some cases they found the right actors; mainly the ones they pulled right off the Broadway stage like Aaron Tveit as Enjolras and Samantha Barks as Eponine.  But these are usually the ones who have the minor roles.  The headliners are in general more hit and miss, with one in particular being a big miss.  One thing that does the actors a disservice in the film is Tom Hooper’s insistence on live recordings of each song.  Musical films are typically not filmed that way, as songs are usually per-recorded by the actors beforehand and they are played back on set so that actors can focus on their performance without having to concentrate on their singing.  Once again, it points out Hooper’s lack of experience when it comes to filming musical numbers, so the actors’ performances feel constrained as they are having to both act and focus on their singing.  It’s doable, but it also works against the way the songs sound in the end.  This is very much evident with actors like Eddie Redmayne as Marius and Amanda Seyfried as Cosette.  Sure they are capable of singing, but the pressure to get the melody right often causes their performances to feel flat.  The only one who seems to rise above this limitation is Anne Hathaway in the role of Fatine.  This is one of the most demanding roles in all of musical theater, and she seems very aware of that and took it as a personal challenge.  Her performance of “I Dreamed a Dream” was filmed in a single unbroken shot, and with the fact that it was a live recording as well, it mattered that she get it right.  It probably took a number of takes, but they got what they wanted out of her performance and she has the Oscar win today to show for it.  But in general, the pressure of recording the song live stifles the actor’s ability to improvise, as what they sing will also be what’s given over to the soundtrack.  It may work when the actor feels they do their best singing on set, like Rex Harrison wearing a hidden microphone in his tie during the making of My Fair Lady (1964),  but to impose that on the whole cast is putting up an unnecessary barrier for their style of performance.

And then you have the cases of actors who are just not right for the roles.  Unfortunately for this version of Les Miserables, the worst choices in casting were the two leading stars.  First off, there’s Hugh Jackman as Jean Valjean.  Jackman is undoubtedly one of the most talented musical performers the world has seen in quite sometime.  He already had numerous runs headlining on Broadway leading up to being cast in this film, which gave a lot of people confidence that he was going to shine in this film as well.  But here’s the thing, Jean Valjean is not the kind of role that plays to his strengths.  Jackman is at his best when he’s a song and dance man, showing off his physicality just as much as his vocal range.  Jean Valjean does not give him as much to work with other than just standing and singing.  And the kind of singing is also a bit out of range as well.  Hugh’s typically a baritone, but the role of Jean Valjean requires a tenor, so when you hear him try to sing these songs, you can really hear the strain in Hugh’s voice.  You’ve got to give him the credit for trying, but it might have served the movie better if they could’ve given the role to a more natural sounding tenor.  Overall, Hugh Jackman just feels miscast and that the performance just does not use his skills as a musical performer to their fullest.  But his misplacement in this film is nothing compared to Russell Crowe in the role of Inspector Javert.  Javert is one of the most coveted roles in musical theater, with some of the most powerful songs in the entire musical.  So, why did the filmmakers think that Russell Crowe was the guy for the part.  He doesn’t have the bass-baritone range required for the character and his only musical experience is having his own rock band.  This was clearly a case where the studio wanted a well known name in the part, and the Oscar-winning Gladiator star fit the bill.  His performance is the thing that is pretty much universally panned across the board with this movie; even amongst the film’s defenders.  He’s the one actor where the live recordings did an especially big disservice, as he just sounds like a high school drama student trying too hard to hit every precise note.  It’s embarrassingly stilted performance where you’re aware of every sour note Crowe delivers.

While the performances themselves have many unfortunate limitations, there’s inherent problems within the musical itself that pretty much makes a translation to the big screen impossible.  Les Miserables is different from a lot of other Broadway musicals in that it’s not a heavily choreographed show.  For the most part, Les Miz is noteworthy for it’s actors not doing acrobatic, intricate dances on stage, but rather for standing still in the glow of spotlight and singing.  With the right light design and an actor capable of singing to the rafters, you can make that compelling on stage.  But, translating that to the screen just creates too much stillness.  There isn’t a whole lot of physicality in the film, just a lot of actors standing in a room and singing.  And that just makes a film like this boring.  There’s no spotlight to draw the audiences eye.  Again, Hooper’s docu drama like approach just makes every shot look exactly the same, so these songs that are supposed to be emotionally wrenching just are not.  That in the end is the most glaring failure of Tom Hooper’s Les Miserables; it a crushing bore.  And the failure is all the more crushing because you could see how this movie could’ve been great.  It’s based on one of the all time most celebrated musicals, adapted from one of the great books of western literature.  It has an all-star cast with actors who do have the ability to sing (mostly), and it clearly had a lot of money put into the production.  To me, the movie musicals that have a lot going for it and end up squandering it all are the worst kind of musicals.  Even among other bad musicals this one really falls below the standard.  In all honesty, I would rather re-watch another disastrous movie musical directed by Tom Hooper named Cats (2019) over this one any time.  Don’t get me wrong, Cats is an absolute disaster as well, and on the surface much worse in every way compared to Les Miz.  But, it’s also never boring.  Part of the appeal for some with the movie Cats is the train-wreck aspect of it all, and it shockingly has gained a bit of a reputation as a camp classic.  The same cannot be said about Les Miz, which is just a depressing experience that is not worth revisiting.

My hope is that this is not the definitive movie version of this musical.  Maybe someday we might see another filmmaker come in and try to do justice to the material.  This musical definitely demands a grander scope to it; something like the grand 70mm musicals of the mid-century Hollywood period, and not the flattened down version that we got here.  In general, what hurts the movie the most is the wasted efforts of all involved.  Tom Hooper is clearly out of his element here, and is far better suited for simple, elegant historical dramas, like the movie that was his follow-up, The Danish Girl (2015).  Of course, Hooper did make the mistake of going back to musicals with Cats, but that production strangely showed some growth in him as well as it didn’t have the same boring aesthetic that he gave Les Miz.  The problems with Cats extended well beyond Hooper’s direction, so he’s not the reason that it failed as much as he was the problem with this movie.  Overall, Les Miserables is just a poorly staged production, with uninspired musical numbers, awkward performances, and no sense of the enormity of the story it is trying to tell.  To be frank, I do know that my feelings about the movie are not shared by the whole of the critical community.  The movie in general did receive a lukewarm reception from critics, and it was a box office success, and did walk away with some Oscar gold.  But, over the years, it also has lost a lot of it’s luster.  No body celebrates it as one of the all time great movie musicals, and the only times it is discussed is with the things that people remember hating about it, particularly the whole Russell Crowe of it all.  For critics like me, it’s the missed opportunity that hurts the most.  It should have been great and instead it’s less than average.  All the performers in this movie have thankfully gone on to bigger and better things.  Hugh Jackman just finished an acclaimed run on Broadway in a Music Man revival, and his co-star Eddie Redmayne just began one for Cabaret.  Russell Crowe thankfully has kept his singing career off the screen and on the stage with his band.  And the genre of the musical still thrives and has seen better adaptations over the years; and it doesn’t show any signs of slowing down with something like Wicked on the horizon.  For experiencing the musical Les Miserables, you’re still better off catching it on the stage, because for once the big screen turned out too be too small.

Movie Reviews

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes – Review

The Planet of the Apes franchise has had one of the most interesting histories in Hollywood.  When the original 1968 film that launched the series first premiered, it was heralded as a landmark in science fiction, famous for it’s groundbreaking make-up turning human actors into simian characters as well as it’s infamous twist ending.  But, what was groundbreaking in it’s time would lose it’s luster the longer the series went on.  The studio behind the Apes franchise, 20th Century Fox, continued to release more movies throughout the 70’s, and each one saw diminishing returns and dwindling budgets, before ultimately being shelved after the mediocre box office of the fifth movie, Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973).  As the films began to feel antiquated in the blockbuster era that followed, Planet of the Apes became something of a punchline of how not to make a science fiction movie.  But the original film remained an untouchable classic to many, and it would remain an influential film for a new crop of filmmakers coming into Hollywood.  One such filmmaker, the visionary Tim Burton, tried to give the Planet of the Apes franchise a refresh in 2001.  Unfortunately, despite having some fairly impressive and more realistic looking make-up for his cast, Burton’s remake couldn’t hold a candle to the legacy of the original.  It would take another decade before there was another serious attempt at bringing the franchise back to it’s former glory.  With the release of Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011), Fox managed to find renewed life in the series with a much more effective tool at their disposable; motion capture computer imaging.  The technology could effectively mimic an actors performance into a CGI sculpted model and have that digital creation feel authentically lifelike.  The rubber masks of the old Planet of the Apes were now obsolete, because an actor could now embody their characters fully within the skin of a real looking ape.

Of course, it also mattered who was in the digital monkey suit.  One of the reasons why the newer Planet of the Apes movies worked as well as they did is because they featured a standout performance from an actor who has made his whole career through excelling in motion capture performances.  Andy Serkis, who had also famously brought the creature Gollum to amazing life in The Lord of the Rings trilogy through the same motion capture process, helped to push the boundaries of this technology even further.  Each film in the most recent batch of Apes movies keeps improving on the technology to where the seams between the digital characters and the live action environments are pretty much seamless, and Andy Serkis is so comfortable performing with the technology that every subtle gesture gets perfectly translated.  And it helps that the story and characters are compelling enough to get us invested in the movie’s narrative.  For Andy Serkis, he couldn’t have asked for a better character to embody than the ape Caesar.  While Rise certainly laid the groundwork for a strong return of the franchise, it wasn’t really until director Matt Reeves took the helm that the franchise found it’s core strength and achieved it’s greatest success.  Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014) and War for the Planet of the Apes (2017) were critically acclaimed epic adventures that really showed off the potential that this franchise had long promised.  With Serkis’ passionate performance, outstanding visual effects work, and intense action film-making, the Caesar Trilogy as it is now called has helped to bring Planet of the Apes  back to the high place it once had in the annals of great science fiction.  But, the Caesar trilogy also was a story with a definitive end, as the franchise also put to rest it’s central character in War with a heartfelt heroes exit.  For the franchise to continue, things were going to have to start fresh, especially after the Fox/Disney merger has shaken up things even more.  Still, 20th Century Studios knows the value of one of the marquee franchises, and a new era begins this weekend with the release of Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes.

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes takes place many generations into the future.  The remnants of human civilization have been reclaimed by nature, and the memory of Caesar has now evolved into the legend of Caesar.  Various tribes of Ape cultures now roam the planet, all with their own customs and beliefs that guide their internal societies.  We meet a young ape named Noa (Owen Teague) who belongs to a tribe of apes that have trained and domesticated eagles.  As part of a rite of passage, Noa must care for an unhatched eagle egg, but through an accident he has ended up smashing the one that was in his care.  Hoping to retrieve a replacement, Noa leaves his village in the middle of the night.  But on his way to the nesting grounds, he stumbles upon an ambush from another ape tribe, who are heading for his village.  He returns to find his home set afire and his whole family taken away as hostages.  With nothing left, Noa leaves his smoldering village behind to track down the marauding apes in hopes of rescuing the rest of his family.  Out in the wild, he stumbles upon the encampment of an old sage ape named Raka (Peter Macon), who devotes his life to spreading the teachings of Caesar to any civilized ape society that he can.  He agrees to help Noa on his quest, using his knowledge of the wider world to give them a better sense of where they must travel.  On the road, they discover that they are being followed by a human girl (Freya Allan).  Roka names the girl Nova, as he does for all humans, and Noa observes that she is smarter than most of the other humans that he has encountered.  Human kind has turned feral after the same virus that gave apes intelligence also took away their ability to speak, but Nova seems more aware of what the apes are saying to one another.  The trio of travelers soon find where Noa’s tribe has been taken.  They are being held at a makeshift fortress made out of old tanker ships, which is lorded over by a tyrannical ape lord named Proximus Caesar (Kevin Durand), who keeps an intelligent human companion by his side named Trevathan (William H. Macy).  Can Noa save his family and stop Proximus from seeking more ultimate power as the ape lord attempts to open up an ancient human bunker?

One of the smart things that this movie does is that it doesn’t try to give you too much homework to digest upfront.  If you have never seen any Planet of the Apes movie before this, you’ll be able to catch on pretty quickly.  This is a complete refresh of the franchise, putting it somewhere in between the Caesar era where the origins of the Planet of the Apes started from and the far futuristic era of the original classic, allowing this movie to exist as it’s own thing.  Sure, if you have followed along with the franchise from the beginning, there are plenty of legacy call outs in the movie that will be fun Easter eggs for longtime fans, but they never take away from the story that this one is telling.  And as far as both a continuation of what’s come before as well as a kick off for what’s to come next, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes does an excellent job accomplishing it’s mission.  What I especially love about this movie is the world building.  Director Wes Ball previously worked on the Maze Runner series, and despite what you may think about the storytelling of those YA adaptations, the one thing that Ball does excel at is giving his worlds a very lived in feel.  In particular, he is excellent at blending the natural world with a mechanical one.  Here, this style is used effectively to convey a world where human civilization has fallen and all the infrastructure that we left behind has turned into ruin.  The way that Ball visualizes this is striking, with things like skyscrapers and bridges appearing as these silent sentinels in dense jungles the same way that we view the Mayan temples and the Pyramids of Giza today.  A lot of it is subtly placed in many scenes, as what looks like a cliff face at first glance reveals itself to be the wall of what once was a tall building.  The mix of the natural world and the crumbling remains of the modern world is effectively immersive in this movie and the overall effect helps to make the story all the more engaging.  It does make me excited about what director Wes Ball has next for us, as his next project will be a live action adaptation of The Legend of Zelda video game series; a job that I believe he is well suited for given what he has done here.

The film’s narrative is also effectively told, if at times a bit predictable.  One thing that I do like is that the movie keeps the focus small, even though the setting is epic.  Like the Caesar movies before it, Kingdom doesn’t try to telling a grander, global story and instead focuses on the the journey that our central characters take.  The previous films gave us a sense of the greater world conflict through just the eyes of Caesar, and this movie does the same with Noa.  It is ultimately his story, and the movie works best when it allows the world to unfold through his experience.  What I thought was especially surprising in this movie was the fact that it had some interesting things to say about religion.  We see both the good and the bad influences that religion can have on a society, especially one that is still in it’s infancy like those of the apes.  In this movie, Caesar has become something of a Christ figure to the apes, and their attempts at proto civilizations on the foundations of their newly enlightened consciousness seem to circle around their creation of a new faith.  In some cases, there are apes like Roka who take the teachings of Caesar and try to use them to seek peaceful ways of life.  Then there are others like Proximus who use the name and words of Caesar to justify his own evil deeds.  You can see the hallmarks of early Christianity in these different followers of Caesar, and I thought that it offered a very interesting subtext to the movie.  It also plays well into Noa’s story, as his journey begins without him being aware of this new religion to begin with.  By movie’s end, he soon learns that the apes view much of Caesar’s example through his own growth as a leader.  The movie also delivers this subtly, as it doesn’t try to hit you over the head with any obvious Christ allegory.  This is still a Planet of the Apes movie after all, and most of the film still centered around a lot of action, which can sometimes feel like overkill as it’s just adding more run time.  Still, allegory has also been a trademark of the Apes franchise, so it is still in character for the franchise.

With the story starting fresh, it is definitely important to create engaging characters for us to follow along with.  The issue that this movie had to overcome was that it was going to be missing the character of Caesar, who has been one of the most captivating characters in recent cinema history.  Andy Serkis also set a high bar when it comes to how to act through motion capture, as his performance was so nuanced and powerful even through the CGI transfer.  Thankfully, the cast of this movie manages to rise to the challenge.  It really shows how far this motion capture technology has advanced to where the filmmakers can confidently fill nearly all the roles with actors performing through CGI avatars.  As the newer Planet of the Apes movies have come along, the ratio of live action to motion capture characters has completely flipped.  Now the humans are greatly outnumbered by the apes, with only two major roles given to the humans this time around.  The most daunting assignment was to have a character to stand out in the place of Caesar as the new protagonist.  Thankfully, Noa is a compelling enough character to carry this movie.  It helps that he’s a bit more juvenile than Caesar was, only just reaching manhood and not as confident in his abilities from the start.  He’s a character with a lot of room to grow and that he does throughout the movie.  Owen Teague also does a fine job of making him a well rounded character as a result, and he perfectly picks up from where Andy Serkis left off in creating that balance between simian and human.  Peter Macon also brings some wonderful levity into the story as Raka, the one character who’s able to bring optimism and humor into an otherwise bleak world.  And though he doesn’t factor in until late into the movie, Kevin Durand is an effective menacing presence as Proximus.  Sadly it’s the human characters that feel the least fleshed out.  Freya Allan does the best she can as the human girl Nova, and she does convincingly shares her scenes with her digital co-stars, but the script sadly makes her character a bit too much of an enigma.

The film’s visual are also impressively realized.  I already talked a bunch about the world-building, but the reason why it works so well is because the film balances it’s visual and practical effects to perfection.  The practical elements work because there are actual actors interacting in natural environments.  The motion capture technology allows for actors to still perform their scenes on set with special tracking suits, and the technology has improved to the point where they can actually do this effect outdoors without the need for a controlled digital environment.  That’s why these Planet of the Apes movies have been the best showcase for this technology, because it’s been the best testing ground for every new challenge for the digital artists.  The CGI models for the apes are also becoming more impressive with each movie.  At times, even in fully sunlit scenes, the ape characters hold up really well and maintain their integrity to the point where you really believe that they are there.  The visual effects also do a great job of giving this movie an epic feel.  This movie definitely feel like the grandest we’ve seen so far in this series, and this is a movie that demands being seen on the biggest screen possible.  There’s also a lot of other things to like about the presentation of the movie, including the musical score.  Longtime Planet of the Apes fans will appreciate the call backs to past musical scores in the franchise, including an especially noticeable reference to the original film’s theme written by the legendary Jerry Goldsmith.  The new composer John Paesano clearly is familiar with the soundscape of this franchise, and this is one of the most ambitious sounding scores we have heard yet.  Overall, it elevates the Planet of the Apes  into a different register, and it’s a clear sign of the new direction that the series wants to take in the future, going from the camp of the original movies, to the grittiness of the Caesar Trilogy, to what is likely going to be a more epic adventure in what is anticipated to be a whole new trilogy.

Regardless of where the franchise goes next, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is still a great stand alone movie on it’s own that both honors it’s legacy but also lays the groundwork for something special yet to come.  It shows that this half century old franchise still has a few tricks up it’s sleeve left to play.  What has really worked to the franchises favor is it’s embrace and practical use of motion capture technology.  The series knows how to make the best use of this tool by having it be no more than just the extension of the actors performance.  If the character and the actors portraying them weren’t compelling, no one would care and it would be just a gimmick.  But actors like Andy Serkis have shown that you can not only give a captivating performance through motion capture, you can even make it Oscar worthy, and it’s characters like Caesar that have proven how best to work with this kind of technology.  Kingdom shows us that we can now fill a whole cast of characters with actors performing through this technique, and that indicates some very promising new horizons that could be possible in the future for cinema.  Even still, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is still a worthy addition to this long running franchise, and it is well worth seeing, especially on a big screen.  It’s lush world building and surprisingly philosophical story also make it a richer film experience than you would expect.  It may not consistently reach the emotional heights as some of the Caesar Trilogy movies, but there are still plenty of exciting and memorable moments to help make this more than just your average popcorn flick.  I certainly am excited to see where the series goes from here.  Will it actually dove tail into the events of the original classic? Imagine if all of this is going on while Charlton Heston’s astronaut is still lost in deep space.  I’m happy that this movie is dependent on trying to tie all the lore together, but rather is more interested creating new bits of lore to expand upon.  In any case, we have an exciting future to look forward to with this new chapter in the Apes franchise and Kingdom is an adventure worth taking this summer at the movies.

Rating: 8/10

Editorials

Falling for the Fall Guy – The Underappreciated Art of Stunt Work in Film

The stunt man is often looked at as the most thankless job in the movie business.  To perform a stunt on film involves a person literally putting their health and safety on the line to make an action beat feel authentic, and yet we don’t know the names of those who perform the stunt and we hardly ever see their faces.  And yet their work may end up being the most impressive thing that we see in any given movie.  Some of the greatest moments ever put on film are due to the work that these men and women do, and they are completely invisible.  At the same time, the stunt teams know that their job is to mainly make the movie stars look better.  The reason stunt teams exist at all is because movie studios will not risk endangering their actors, unless the actors do want to get more involved, which then will add more to the budget due to the insurance costs.  But there is little doubt that stunt work is an invaluable part of the making of a movie and more and more today we are seeing audiences becoming more appreciative of the work that these invisible men and women do.  After many years of tiresome CGI enhanced mayhem being overused by the industry, there is starting to become a growing appreciation for actual physical stunt work once again.  And this is due to the fact that people who have come up through the stunt departments in movies are now making their own movies and revolutionizing the action movie genre once again.  In the past couple decades, we’ve seen people like Michael Bay and Gore Verbinski become the leading action filmmakers, but these guys rose up into the director’s chair through visual effects and camera departments, making their action movies more visually oriented.  Today, the most celebrated action movies are the ones directed by former stunt performers like David Leitch and Chad Stahelski, who have brought action movies back to it’s grounded roots.  And as a result, the last few years have been something of a golden age for stunts in cinema.

Stunt work is a profession as old as the movies themselves, and even further back than that.  Stage craft as far back as the days of Shakespeare required performers who were skilled in combat and capable of feigning a realistic fight in front of an audience for the purpose of the drama.  That profession continued on and evolved as theater performances became grander spectacles over the years, incorporating elements that we still see today as part of the movie making business like wire work and acrobatics.  Once cinema arrived on the scene, performers who had trained their skills on the stage were necessary for making the illusion of life on screen feel authentic.  The first verified stunts captured on film were the of course in what is recognized as the first action movie, The Great Train Robbery (1903).  As primitive as the art of film still was in the dawn of the 20th century, The Great Train Robbery still had it’s actors acting out fights on real moving locomotives, which even today is something that requires a lot of risk taking.  That groundbreaking work of cinema paved the way for many more spectacles to come.  The silent era of film is one full of some death defying stunt work that honestly could never happen the same way today due to the fact that much of it was un-regulated at the time.  In those days, the actors themselves were required to do the stunts themselves because that was just the nature of filmmaking at the time, and some of their stunts involved falling from very high places or having something very heavy fall on their heads.  As movie stars emerged, it was recognized that these actors perhaps needed someone skilled to take their place for the more dangerous stunts.  And out of that, the stunt profession was born in Hollywood.  Movies from the great silent movie auteurs like D.W. Griffith and Cecil B. DeMille would certainly not have made as much of an impact had there not been a dedicated stunt team there to make those battle scenes feel as brutal as they possibly could be.

But the silent era also showed us a different way that stunts could be performed in film, and that was in the service of comedy.  If anything, the stunts of the silent era that still astound audiences to this day are the ones found in comedic silent films, particularly those of Harold Lloyd and Buster Keaton.  Charlie Chaplain had the occasional impressively choreographed stunt in his movies, but his comedic genius was more present in the small bits that he performed to perfection.  Lloyd and Keaton on the other hand went very big with their comedic stunts, often to the point where you feel they were tempting death in order to get the perfect shot.  Harold Lloyd’s most celebrated film, Safety Last (1923) involved the comedian hanging off of the side of a skyscraper, with the most famous image of the film being his clinging onto life by the hands of a clock face.  That moment was made possible before there was ever such a thing as rear projection or green screen, so to get the shot just right, Lloyd and his crew built a façade wall on the roof of an actual skyscraper.  Though he really wasn’t hanging right off the edge of a building, he was still very high up to get the real street scene below into the shot, so the stunt was still a huge risk to take.  In Buster Keaton’s movies, the gags were so elaborate and dangerous that there are several instances where if his timing was off by mere seconds, he would truly be dead.  The famous wall collapse in Steamboat Bill Jr. (1928) is a great example of this, as Buster had to hit his mark perfectly or else he wouldn’t have been in the safe zone as the needle point poking through the window hole in the side of a whole building coming crashing down.  And there’s of course The General (1926) where Keaton is working with full size moving trains as his props, which could’ve spelled disaster if one mistimed stunt led to a derailment.  But as much as these comedians nearly killed themselves for the sake of comedy, the hard work still paid off, and you can see the inspiration they had on comedies thereafter, with stunt work playing crucially into the comedy of films like It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963), The Naked Gun (1988) and so many more.

As the movies got bigger in the mid century, so did the stunts required to make the movie scenes feel more epic.  Two genres in particular began to advance the art of stunt work in this period; Westerns and Biblical epics.  For a lot of these movies, the ability to ride a horse (and more specifically to fall off one) became an essential skill for stunt performers.  This even led to an invention specifically made to help stunt actors, which was the L stirrup, which allowed horse riders to fall off a horse without getting their foot caught in the stirrup.  A lot of other inventions were created to also help enhance the stunt work performed on film, including air bags for falls from high places, air rams that were used to catapult performers into the air, and when censorship standards for on screen violence began to lessen, the introduction of squibs made gun shots all the more realistic on screen.  With the stunts becoming more complicated in these mid-century movies, the duty of a stunt coordinator became all the more important.  The stunt coordinator in many ways is a director of a film within a film, as their responsibility is to make sure the stunts are performed perfectly in conjunction with everything else on screen.  One of the most valuable stunt coordinators of this era was a man named Yakima Canutt.  Yakima was one of the most skilled horsemen in Hollywood in it’s early days, famous for having the first horse transfer ever put on film, which is to jump from one galloping horse to another.  Naturally, he was the go to guy for staging some of the most complex horse riding stunts in the movies, mostly in Westerns.  But his crowning achievement as a stunt coordinator can be found in the biblical epic Ben-Hur (1959), where he was the coordinator and second unit director of the legendary chariot race scene.  The chariot race in that movie is a monumental piece of filmmaking that still is unmatched over sixty years later and it’s due to the instinctive skills of a veteran stuntman who knew exactly what was required to work with horses in a big action sequence.

During the later part of the century, the profession of stunt work began to evolve again, stepping away from swords and sandals and heading more into the streets of modern society.  Stunt driving began to come into it’s own as vehicles became more streamlined and powerful on the road.  The most impressive stunts captured on film no longer were the kind that could be done on horseback but rather with horse power.  The Steve McQueen action thriller Bullitt (1968) revolutionized stunt driving with an extended chase scene in the middle of the movie, with real cars driving through the hilly streets of San Francisco.  The scene would go on to inspire many like it in movies like The French Connection (1971) and Vanishing Point (1971).  But that was not the only revolution in stunt work that was going on at the time.  In many ways, 1970’s was the first time where stunt performers were beginning to become appreciated and recognized by the average viewer.  Some former stunt men would go on to become movie stars themselves like Burt Reynolds.  But what really began to take hold in the 70’s was the influence of martial arts in movie stunts.  Audiences began to be wowed by more than one actor throwing punches at another; now they wanted to see high kicks, somersaults, and back flips added into the mix.  The martial arts master turned movie star that defined this shift in stunt work the most was Bruce Lee.  Lee, like many other stunt performers, was a trainer for movie stars for years before breaking out into starring in his own movies.  His life was tragically cut short right as his most famous film, Enter the Dragon (1973), was in theaters, but his legacy still remains strong to this day.  The Hong Kong based film industry that Lee rose out of itself would go on to revolutionize action films over the later part of the 20th Century, producing a impressive array of action film stars who were capable of performing their own stunts, like Jackie Chan, Chow Yun-Fat, and Michelle Yeoh.  In many ways, the Hong Kong action movie industry harkened cinema back to the early days where the spectacle of death defying action was the draw for the audiences, seeing just how far the performers could push themselves.

It should be noted though that despite there being a healthy amount of performers out there ready to use their skills to make stunts look all the more spectacular on screen, as well as plenty safety precautions put in place to safe guard if something goes wrong, the risk factor still results in some unfortunate events.  There are many instances of actors and stunt performers who have been killed on set when a stunt goes horribly wrong.  There are many instances where the death of a stunt performer or an actor can cast a pallor over the movie.  Brandon Lee tragically follow his father Bruce Lee to an early grave after a prop gun discharged a loaded round into his chest during the making of The Crow (1993).  Actor Vic Morrow also met a grisly fate when a helicopter fell right on top of him during the making of a battle scene in Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983).  And these are the names we know; sadly too few people will ever know the names of the stunt performers who gave their lives for film.  There is also the residual impact of stunt performers who survive but are forever crippled by the experience of a stunt gone wrong.  A recent documentary spotlights one such person whose life was forever turned upside down after a catastrophic on set accident.  David Holmes: The Boy Who Lived (2023) tells the story of the stunt double for actor Daniel Radcliffe on the Harry Potter movies who was crippled by such an accident.  Because Daniel Radcliffe and David Holmes worked side by side for so many years on the Potter franchise, they developed a special connection, and the accident deeply affected Daniel, who spear-headed the making of this documentary as a way of drawing attention to David’s story and why it’s important to help out the stunt workers when their lives are forever changed.  David Holmes story is tragic but also inspirational, because of how he’s been able to bounce back and go on living, but he’s lucky to have people like Daniel Radcliffe in his corner who can provide him with the support he needs.  Too often stunt performers are unable to get the health coverage that they need in order to continue performing stunts for a living, and in some cases on smaller budgeted movies, they can also be dangerously exploited.  As we learned from the tragic shooting on the set of the Western Rust, which took the life of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, movie sets can still be dangerous places to be, even for seasoned professionals.

The positive thing is that in recent years, the work of stunt professionals has become far more appreciated by audiences.  It’s probably a response to the tiresome overuse of CGI in action movies that people want to see gritty, unfiltered in camera action again on the big screen.  And that’s why so many of the biggest action movies today are the ones directed by people who have emerged from the stunt departments of Hollywood.  One of the film franchises that has particularly led the way here is the John Wick series.  Star Keanu Reeves worked for years with his stunt double on the Matrix movies, Chad Stahelski, as well as the stunt coordinator David Leitch, on this passion project that was fully centered around stunts rather than visual effects.  The experiment worked and it has spawned a whole new generation of stunt heavy film in it’s wake.  This also coincides with the work of another movie actor who likes to do his own stunts, Tom Cruise, who has made stunts a center point for his Mission: Impossible franchise, as well as the blockbuster sequel Top Gun: Maverick (2022).  In the last couple of years, you’ve seen a bit of a return to the basics of stunt performance on film, but what is different this time is that the stunt teams are having more of a say in the creative process.  These guys want to show off their skills, and part of the thrill of watching movies in the Mission: Impossible or John Wick franchises is just seeing how creative these stunts can be.  And it’s a showcase built upon years of knowledge about the art of cinema dating back to the silent era.  When you see Tom Cruise climbing on the outside of the Burj Khalifa in Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol (2011), it’s not all that far removed from Harold Lloyd clinging to that clock in Safety Last; the only difference is the size of the building.  But there is a trust and an appreciation there on those Mission: Impossible sets between the stunt performers and the filming crew that makes all the difference.  Hollywood is no longer taking their stunt teams for granted and we are seeing audiences really taking notice of the astounding work that stunt performers are doing too.

It’s fun seeing the promotional tour of David Leitch’s newest film The Fall Guy (2024), which has involved actor Ryan Gosling bringing along his team of stunt doubles to every talk show and movie premiere appearance along the way.  It’s a very deliberate attempt to give the stunt performers their due with a movie that’s clearly a love letter to the profession.  But across the whole industry, there is a growing consensus that the stunt profession has been undervalued for far too long.  There has been a growing call for the Academy to add a category at the Oscars for stunts, which to many is a no brainer and it’s a wonder why it’s taken this long for the Academy to even acknowledge the profession.  Given the longevity and essential nature of stunts in movie history, it’s long overdue for the profession to be recognized by the highest honor in Hollywood.  But, some elitists in the movie industry still see stunt work as the hallmark of more low brow entertainment, and it’s something that they want to resist recognizing at the Oscars.  There may be a case where a critically panned movie might receive an Oscar nomination solely because of their stunts, but there are a lot of great movies that use stunts brilliantly as well, and it’s a shame that the stunt performers on those films don’t get their due recognition.  Wouldn’t the chariot race in Ben-Hur have been worthy of an Oscar?  Or the car chase in Bullitt?  Movies like John Wick and Mission: Impossible are showing us that there is an art to stunt work that is as impressive and integral to a movie as any other element of filmmaking.  We won’t be getting a Best Stunts Oscar next year, but I feel like it’s closer to becoming a reality than it has ever been.  And it will be long overdue.  At the very least now stunt performers are finally getting recognized as more than just a fall guy meant to be faceless and there to make the movie star look better.  They are now being seen as some of the hardest working people in the film industry.  It’s also helping to get them the attention they need to receive the care from the industry that is essential for helping them heal from the wounds of their profession.  Whether they are getting blown up, blown out, tumbled around, or tossed from a high place, these brave men and women are the reason why movies feel as magical as they do.