In the light, everybody needs the light

UNDER THE LIGHT

Jianrupanshi (Solid As a Rock)

2023

Directed by Zhang Yimou

Written by Chen Yu

Spoilers: moderate

A cabin in the woods

KNOCK AT THE CABIN

2023

Directed by M. Night Shyamalan

Written by Steve Desmond, Michael Sherman, and M. Night Shyamalan (based on the novel The Cabin At the End of the World by Paul G. Tremblay)

Spoilers: high

Reviews from gulag: The red [door/car/nosed reindeer]

As we continue our clean-up of 2023 with a series of reviews for movies that may or may not have deserved their own entries, we arrive upon Insidious: The Red Door, annoyingly both the fourth and the second sequel to James Wan's 2011 horror superhit, Insidious, picking up the Lambert Saga ten years after Wan finished it in Insidious: Chapter 2 for no obvious reason besides giving perennial supporting-actor champion Patrick Wilson his first crack at directing; Ferrari, Michael Mann's biopic of Enzo Ferrari that, hypothetically, appeals to Mann's historic strengths as a filmmaker or should at least offer some good racing scenes; and Silent Night, John Woo's pun-titled, Christmas-themed experimental action film.  As the title up top indicates, there is indeed something meaningfully red in all three of these movies, but the actual secret theme of these graybles is that they all involve a director I respect a great deal, even if it's for reasons besides directing, nevertheless proving a disappointment.

INSIDIOUS: THE RED DOOR

I've suggested in the past that the Insidious franchise, prior to Insidious: The Red Door, is not good, and, having recently reacquainted myself with them (or become acquainted with some of them in the first place), I'm happy to recant that, albeit with faint praise; it's a horror franchise with the agreeable distinction of improving steadily throughout all of its first three entries, going from a low 7/10 for the first Insidious all the way to a medium-high 7/10 for 2015's Insidious: Chapter 3.  This was unlikely to continue apace and it did stumble, rather hard, with its fourth entry, 2018's Insidious: The Last Key, which at least had a few strong novelties to offset the feeling that the franchise had clearly exhausted most of its best moves already.  (The first three all had the benefit of being directed by one or the other of its creators, James Wan or Leigh Whannell, which makes more of a difference than you might be ready to guess, given how formulaic the scares and stories are.  Meanwhile, The Last Key was at least written by Whannell, which didn't save it, but it felt of a piece with its three predecessors.)  Other than The Last Key not being good, however, the worst thing about those first four films is that Chapter 3 took the unusual step of being a prequel focused upon Lin Shaye's paranormal investigator and spirit medium, Elise Rainier.  Obviously, insofar as Elise was almost objectively the single best element of the franchise, its focus on her was not the bad part; that's the "prequel" part, where Whannell blinked and took his franchise back in time to give Elise a new story, despite having already ended Chapter 2 with an inordinately strong sequel hook, for while that film concluded the "central" story of the Lambert family on a satisfying and happy note, it also promised Further adventures (ha, ha) with Elise and her sidekicks, irrespective of the fact that Elise had been dead for an entire movie by this point.  I mean, it's a franchise entirely about ghosts and the metaphysical dark mirror of the real world where ghosts hang out after they die; this was not some insuperable challenge.  The worst thing about the worst thing, meanwhile, is simply that, flying in the face of all logic, Whannell's prequel was still named "chapter 3."  This had to be awfully irritating when development began on Insidious: The Red Door, which finally does offer a chronologically-third Insidious movie, as well as another (and presumably the final) chapter in the story of Josh Lambert (Patrick Wilson) and Dalton Lambert (Ty Simpkins), father and son astral projectors whose unique talents had tended to get them into trouble.

The annihilator

THE MARVELS

2023

Directed by Nia DaCosta

Written by Megan McDonnell, Elissa Karasik, and Nia DaCosta

Spoilers: moderate

Reviews from gulag: Vampires suck

It's that time again, when we face the necessity of getting fast and somewhat dirty as we dispose of the detritus of the previous year.  For our first batch of titles, we have a convenient theme in 2023's major vampire films: The Last Voyage of the Demeter, which is the Dracula-on-a-boat adventure it says it is, adapting Chapter 7 of Bram Stoker's novel; El Conde, the new Pablo Larraín film, of all things, which deploys the curious conceit of wondering what it would be like if Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet had actually been a vampire who never died; and Renfield, which, like Demeter, looks to the beginning of things with Stoker for its inspiration, and wonders what it would be like if Dracula and Renfield survived long enough for Renfield to read self-help books and decide to rebel against his toxic boss, while also giving Universal Pictures an opportunity to do something/anything with its Dracula IP, still good for a few more years.  You would never, ever guess which one of these is not a piece of shit.

Note: I will be spoiling The Last Voyage of the Demeter, a little.  I guess I kind of spoil El Conde, but only if you're unrealistically ignorant of late 20th century history.

THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE DEMETER

Of course, if I warn you that I'm spoiling The Last Voyage of the Demeter, have I not already spoiled The Last Voyage of the Demeter?  But then, if it's even meaningful to ask "guess who survives the Demeter?", the project has already failed in the first place.  Look, The Last Voyage of the Demeter ends not with extinction, but a fucking sequel hook.  This insane unwillingness to fully embrace the fatalistic nihilism that ought to be burned right into this weird sidequel's bones was always going to be its biggest problem; yet, with this treatment, I'm not entirely sure that if it had done so it still could have managed to have clawed its way up to an adequate movie—I just wouldn't have totally despised it. I felt a deep sense of pessimism about its chances sweep over me within the first seconds, which outline the basic scenario in its introductory text—the Demeter wrecked on the English coast (this is, uh, not the most faithful adaptation in any respect), the captain's (Liam Cunningham's) log found—and then wrench you right out of the story it's telling, by announcing right in the midst of its text narration that it's "based on the novel Dracula," which is almost correct, in that Dracula offers itself as a curated archive of documents that are real in its universe, but are only a novel in ours.  A few seconds after that, it shows us exactly what it just told us, I suppose so you'd know that superfluousness was going to be a major element of this movie.  I don't think anything in the movie ever gets wonkier than this first minute, at least, but the screenplay does frequently flirt with similar malapropism, notably when a character asks if everyone has been "struck dumb," meaning "stupid," even though "dumb" has never meant "stupid" when you put "struck" in front of it (and it would be exceedingly hip and with-it for this Russian to use "dumb" for "stupid" in his mostly-fluent British English in 1897 anyway, so it's not "character embroidery").  There's also a line where a Romanian claims that Dracula's castle is older than any of them, which, from context, is supposed to be impressive for some reason.

Hall of egress

THE TUNNEL TO SUMMER, THE EXIT OF GOODBYES

aka Natsu e no Tonneru, Sayonara no Deguchi

2022 Japan/2023 USA

Written and directed by Tomohisa Taguchi (based on the novella and comic books by Mei Hachimoku, Kukka, and Koudon)

Spoilers: moderate

When the oceans drank Atlantis

AQUAMAN AND THE LOST KINGDOM

2023

Directed by James Wan

Written by David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick, Thomas Pa'a Sibbett, Jason Momoa, and James Wan

Spoilers: moderate

Another castle

THE SUPER MARIO BROS. MOVIE

2023

Directed by Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic

Written by Matthew Fogel

Spoilers: moderate

Confabulation War

SISU

2023

Written and directed by Jalmari Helander

Spoilers: moderate

Yeah? Well, I'm gonna go make my own Blade Runner, with blackjack, and hookers

THE CREATOR

2023

Directed by Gareth Edwards

Written by Chris Weitz and Gareth Edwards

Spoilers: moderate

The aristocrats!

SALTBURN

2023

Written and directed by Emerald Fennell

Spoilers: moderate

He was like Superman for Metropolis or the Flash for Central City, just maybe not as good

BLUE BEETLE

2023

Directed by Ángel Manuel Soto

Written by Gareth Dunnet-Alcocer

Spoilers: moderate

Blownapart

NAPOLEON

2023

Directed by Ridley Scott

Written by David Scarpa

Spoilers: inapplicable

Beastly mode

NIMONA

2023

Directed by Nick Bruno and Troy Quane

Written by Pamela Ribon, Mark Haimes, Keith Bunin, Robert L. Baird, Lloyd Taylor, Nick Bruno, and Troy Quane (based on the comic book by ND Stephenson)

Spoilers: moderate

Should General MacArthur be concerned? No, I don't mean about Godzilla

GODZILLA MINUS ONE

2023

Written and directed by Takashi Yamazaki

Spoilers: moderate

When it comes to the universe, we're all shareholders

WISH

2023

Directed by Chris Buck and Fawn Veerasunthorn

Written by Jennifer Lee, Allison Moore, Chris Buck, and Fawn Veerasunthorn

Spoilers: moderate

Before Earth

65

2023

Written and directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods

Spoilers: moderate

Entre nous

THE HOLDOVERS

2023

Directed by Alexander Payne

Written by David Hemingson

Spoilers: moderate

Redundancy, redundancy, and redundancy

THE KILLER

2023

Directed by David Fincher

Written by Andrew Kevin Walker

Spoilers: moderate

Bros before Trolls

TROLLS BAND TOGETHER

Directed by Walt Dohrn (co-directed by Tim Heitz)

Written by Elizabeth Tippett

Spoilers: moderate