Blink Twice

Director: Zoë Kravitz
Starring: Naomi Ackie, Channing Tatum, Christian Slater, Alia Shawkat, Simon Rex, Adria Arjona, Haley Joel Osment, Liz Carabel, Levon Hawke, Trew Mullen, Geena Davis, Kyle MacLachlan
Running Time: 102 min.
Rating: R

★★½ (out of ★★★★)   

If Knives Out and Jordan Peele had a baby, the result might come close to resembling Zoë Kravitz's Blink Twice, which some might remember had the original working title of Pussy Island. But once the Motion Picture Association got involved and likely told Kravitz her directorial debut would only play in theaters with three X's on the marquee, she gave in. But that's apparently where the compromise ended since its new generic title implies a blandness that couldn't be further from what unfolds onscreen, for better or worse. 

You know you're in for a wild ride when this opens with a trigger warning, but Kravitz definitely takes her time in setting up a premise with enough stylistic flourishes and debauchery to double as Saltburn's distant cousin. Attempting to explore themes of memory and misogyny, the execution is all over the map, complete with a reveal that still somehow feels off despite all the enticing groundwork laid.

When nail artist and cocktail waitress Frida (Naomi Ackie) and her friend Jess (Alia Shawkat) work an event thrown by billionaire tech entrepreneur Slater King (Channing Tatum), Frida strikes up a conversation with the mogul, who invites them both to his private island. Having recently stepped down as his company's CEO amidst an unspecified scandal, Slater has publicly apologized and turned over a new leaf, now dedicating his time to self-help therapy sessions and philanthropic endeavors. 

Upon their arrival, Frida and Jess meet Slater's entourage consisting of photographer Vic (Christian Slater), chef Cody (Simon Rex), personal assistant Stacy (Geena Davis), security head Stan (Chris Costa), DJ Tom (Haley Joel Osment) and hanger-on Lucas (Levon Hawke). Other women joining Frida and Jess as guests are former Survivor contestant Sarah (Adria Arjona), vapid app developer Camilla (Liz Caribel) and stoned out lawyer Heather (Trew Mullen). 

All of them are treated to a relaxing paradise where they're showered with lavish gift bags, expensive perfumes, gourmet meals and hallucinogenics. But while Slater takes a special interest in Frida, Jess  notices mysterious lapses in her memory, suspecting this beautiful getaway is more controlled and cult-like than they initially assumed, Before long, Frida will also become wary of the island's secrets and Slater's intentions, eventually realizing that leaving on her own free will won't be an option.

There are sinister clues and bread crumbs dropped throughout that hint at something darker, but for a good portion of the running time, it's just non-stop partying, eating and doing drugs. When Kravitz does pull the trigger on this plot after much build-up, it comes hard and fast, as if the film's length doesn't give her nearly enough runway to fully explore all the script's ideas.

Spending time with such an eclectic cast isn't exactly a chore, even if their characters are really just pawns in a larger game rather than multi-dimensional personalities to be invested in. Naomi Ackie's versatile performance as Frida is the major exception, as the actress sensitively portrays the insecurity and frustration of someone sick of being invisible. Just Slater acknowledging Frida's existence is a huge deal for her, as the invite and extra attention override the weirdness, obscuring any red flags and Jess's desperate pleas to leave. 

While we know this is all his dangerous power play, Tatum keeps Slater consistent, showing no noticeable changes in either his cool demeanor or oddly detached hospitality. That those outside his inner circle don't look like total idiots for getting sucked into his vortex is a plus, even if the story relies on a clumsily conceived sci-fi device to do it. 

The rest of the performances entertain to varying degrees, with Christian Slater, Simon Rex and Geena Davis leaving strong impressions as King's employees. And after early concerns Hit Man breakout Adria Arjona would be underutilized, her supporting role gains importance as this wears on, further solidifying the actress's rising status with a very different kind of turn here.

Audiences may start to wonder if Slater King stole a copy of Elon Musk's vacation itinerary when  Kravitz tries her hand at a Quentin Tarantino-style female revenge fantasy at the end. She's not half bad at it, though a plot twist involving Frida's connection to the island hardly makes a lick of sense in retrospect. 

Messy and overindulgent, Blink Twice is hard to look away from, but difficult getting a handle on, often coming across as a dark satire that provides only a surface level examination of heavier issues involving gender dynamics, abuse and rape. Luckily, Kravitz is a more compelling director than writer, so even when the narrative gets sloppy, the visuals, editing and performances help its cause. She emerges unscathed, showing the potential to easily surpass this with whatever comes next.               

Mad Max: Fury Road

Director: George Miller
Starring: Tom Hardy, Charlize Theron, Nicholas Hoult, Hugh Keays-Byrne, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Riley Keough, Zoë Kravitz, Abbey Lee, Courtney Eaton, Josh Helman, Nathan Jones
Running Time: 120 min.
Rating: R

★★★ ½ (out of ★★★★)

There's always that risk of feeling completely lost or out of the loop when the latest film in a long-running franchise with which you have no familiarity is released. And in the rare event it's celebrated to the extent that George Miller's Mad Max: Fury Road is, it's easy to have a debate in your head whether you should even go through the trouble of seeing it. While that might be a close-minded thing to say, we all have those blank spaces in our moviegoing and it's a legitimate concern that my inability to get around to watching 1979's Mad Max, 1981's Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior or 1985's Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome could create a self-inflicted roadblock in any potential appreciation of the new film. But 10 minutes in, the female protagonist drives her War Rig right through those preconceived notions and I'm completely sold, up to speed and fully engulfed in the universe Miller created and has now returned to. No explanations necessary because it's right there on the screen, so much so that it takes until about an hour for an actual conversation to occur. In many ways, this should have been the highest-grossing movie worldwide because it speaks the one universal language: Action. Everything revealed is done so visually, and once Miller gets his hooks in, your his.

Technically, this delivers unlike any recent entry in the sci-fi/action genre, with effects, production design, action sequences and cinematography so spectacular you must be thinking this is some kind of a joke as you watch, mouth agape at what's transpiring.  If it's a common, justified complaint that we're beaten down every year by uninspired computer-generated mayhem, this is its cure and a beating I'd gladly take again with a smile on my face. Striving for artistic excellence absent in most movies of its ilk, it tells its story expertly with a hardly a misstep to be found. Hearing that a certain movie "needs to seen in a theater" usually causes my eyes to immediately roll back into my head, but the size and scope of this project legitimately demands it. Those prematurely proclaiming it one of the greatest action movies of all-time may only have to wait a few years before discovering the possibility they weren't that far off the mark.

Set in a future, post-apocalyptic desert wasteland where water and gasoline are in short supply, the grizzled Max Rockatansky (Tom Hardy) is captured by a group of War Boys, led by the ruthless Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne), who takes him to the Citadel where he'll be imprisoned as a blood donor. But when Joe sends out one of his lieutenants, Furiosa (Charlize Theron), in a rig to collect gasoline, he realizes she's stolen his Five Wives selected for breeding and gone off course, double-crossing him. Joe enlists an entire army, including a sick War Boy named Nux (Nicholas Hoult) who will stop at nothing to impress him, and has Max strapped to the hood of his truck for blood supply. Looking to make it to the "Green Place" with the women and escape Joe's tyranny, Furiosa's path will cross with Max and Nux's, resulting in a combustible situation that test everyone's loyalty and will to survive.

There's a thrilling chase sequence that seems to last about twenty minutes in the front half of the picture and  the highest compliment that can be given to it is that you don't feel as if your senses have been pummeled and are actually looking forward to whatever follows. Since Miller and cinematographer John Seale are such pros at sfilming these scenes, the action is the setup and there's never a doubt as to what's happening at any given moment. One of the script's biggest strengths is that we're immediately keyed in to the decisions these characters make and why without the burden of needless expository dialogue.

Furiosa's motivations are clear early on, as she intends to be the one who shakes things up, leading a surprising rebellion that lets Immortan Joe (clad in a terrifying Skeletor-like breathing mask) know that, even in a desperate, post-apocalyptic wasteland, these women aren't his property, nor is anyone else. And Theron is in full ass-kicking mode, giving the one-armed Furiosa a death stare that would send any potential threat heading for the hills before she even throws a punch or fires a shot, both of which she does plenty of. The arc of Hardy's Max and Hoult's Nux is a little more complicated, but no less riveting.

As the maniacal loner and prisoner finally getting a taste of freedom, there's an air of mystery surrounding what Max will actually do with it because he's flat-out dangerous. He could easily align with Furiosa or become her and the girls' worst enemy at the drop of a hat and while Hardy's performance has widely been labeled as merely sufficient in the face of Theron's, it's worth considering how effortlessly he replaces Mel Gibson with hardly anyone noticing. Nux's job as a character is to essentially sacrifice himself for Joe's greater cause so what resonates about Hoult in the role is how the realization slowly washes over him that it may not be worth it and he'd rather be a human being than a weapon. And The Five Wives (played by Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Riley Keough, Zoë Kravitz, Abbey Lee and Courtney Eaton) are hardly portrayed as passive damsels in distress, often taking a surprisingly active roles in the carnage as Miller also lets each of their personalities shine through, simultaneously subverting and exploiting their supermodel images for the good of the story.

This feels entirely like how action movies used to be made in the 1980's and it's arguable the chase scenes and action sequences (which pretty much compose every minute of its length) give Star Wars: The Force Awakens a run for its money in terms of production design and its balance of CGI and practical effects. You could call Miller's creation a throwback but doing so would almost imply it isn't the real thing or in any way feels like a reboot or remake in any traditional sense. There's a lot to take in at once in terms of what's on screen so it's not unusual that your jaw suddenly drops at the visual inventiveness of  it all, such as the guitar player strapped to the front of the rig or the "polecats" of Joe's army.   And because there's so little dialogue, the music has to carry much of the load, with Junkie XL's recognizably pulse-pounding score more than delivering the goods.

As big an achievement as this is, and how little it feels directed by a 70-year-old, it's accomplishments are primarily technical, making it difficult to gauge just how much stayed with me after the credits rolled. It's easy to imagine watching the movie multiple times with little difficulty because it's so exciting, but there is a nagging worry that its pleasures, as considerable as they are, may only run skin deep. Of course, this could just be a side effect of it being a genre picture or possibly where my unfamiliarity with the franchise prevents it from leaving the long-lasting impact it would on someone who grew up with the original films.

While nostalgia admittedly went a long way in covering for some of The Force Awakens' shortcomings in the minds of many, it's nearly impossible to level that accusation here. And there's nothing at all average in the execution of it, as Miller temporarily breaks down the barrier that's historically prevented action movies from gaining critical respectability. Thematically, there is more to it if you're willing to read between the lines to see this as a Biblical allegory about feminism, war, oppression or the environment, but Fury Road's ultimate value comes in the pure joy of just simply experiencing it.