The first 90 minutes of this movie are absolutely fantastic. They build up Marla as such a despicable, horrid creature that I was actively begging for the Mafia to get sick revenge on her.
The last 30 minutes are Season 8 Game of Thrones level of terrible and ruin what was about to be one of my favorite movies this year. The steps they want to strain credibility were insane. Firstly her surviving after being drugged and put in the water were questionable. The mafia failing to kill her girlfriend was just...how in the world did they fail killing that girl?
Marla just fell in the water (and I'm not going into the 3 minutes she was able to kick in a glass front window underwater and maintain holding her breath), but she still has her wallet to buy things at the convenience store. She gets to her girlfriend literally just before the place blows up, which she had no control over because she literally waited for a taxi.
They complain that they have nothing left but the diamonds, and but they also apparently have a handy wig, a taser, some morphine knockout drugs to pull off some James Bond type of killing of Peter Dinklage. And then when Dinklage survives, he agrees to be her partner. Look, I get she's smart and was gonna kill it with the mafia. But the shit she did was unforgivable, and it strains my belief that Dinklage wouldn't just go out and torture her the first chance he gets. They did not present him as being a "money first" guy, so him overlooking the mother being thrown IN A PSYCHIATRIC WARD is nuts.
Look, I enjoyed 70% of this movie. It was an excellent horror thriller to that point. I would've loved if this movie went the route of Dinklage and the mob being mostly outsmarted by the crazy, maniacally, absolutely dastardly woman. But that movie NEEDED to end with Dinklage personally killing Marla. No if, ands or buts, anything but that ending ruins the point they spent the rest of the movie going for.
It really hurts me to trash this movie, because Pike was fantastic again in her role as a villain and Dinklage really made me want his character to succeed. But that ending was the worst type of cop out possible.
Denis Villeneuve is the man!
There’s only one word that came into my mind after watching it: finally.
Finally, a blockbuster that isn’t afraid to be primarily driven by drama and tension, and doesn’t undercut its own tone by throwing in a joke every 30 seconds.
Finally, a blockbuster that puts actual effort in its cinematography, and doesn’t have a bland or calculated colour palette.
Finally, a blockbuster with a story that has actual substance and themes, and doesn’t rely on intertextual references or nostalgia to create a fake sheen of depth.
Finally, a blockbuster that doesn’t pander to China by having big, loud and overblown action sequences, but relies on practical and grounded spectacle instead (it has big sand worms, you really don’t need to throw anything at the screen besides that).
Finally, a blockbuster that actually feels big, because it isn’t primarily shot in close ups, or on a sound stage.
And of course: finally, a blockbuster that isn’t a fucking prequel, sequel, or connected to an already established IP somehow.
(Yeah, I know Tenet did those things as well, but I couldn’t get into that because the characters were so flat and uninteresting).
This just checks all the boxes. An engaging story with subtext, very well set up characters, great acting (like James Gunn, Villeneuve's great at accentuating the strengths of limited actors like Dave Bautista and Jason Momoa), spectecular visuals and art design (desaturated but not in an ugly washed out way), pacing (slow but it never drags), directing, one of Hans Zimmer’s best scores: it’s all here.
I only have one real criticism: there’s too much exposition, especially in the first half.
It can occasionally hold your hand by referencing things that have already been established previously, and some scenes of characters explaining stuff to each other could’ve been conveyed more visually.
Other than that, it’s easily one of the best films of the year.
I’ve seen some people critiquing it for being incomplete, which is true, but this isn’t just a set up for a future film.
It feels like a whole meal, there are pay offs in this, and the characters progress (even if, yes, their arcs are still incomplete).
8.5/10
It’s funny to know that this movie was intended to come out before the pandemic, because by releasing it now it might provide some unintentional food for thought for the morons who believe that a certain virus was actually conceived in a lab.
I genuinely wonder if those people will read that far into this film, I’d find it deeply amusing.
The good news is that there are definetely a lot of things this does better than Spectre.
The action is memorable and way more visceral (though it doesn’t quite surpass the Mission Impossible Fallout bar) and the characters are generally more interesting.
I loved the women in this in particular, they all have distinct personalities and they’re not flawless human beings or overpowered (e.g. Ana de Armas is bubbly and fun, but at the same time she’s inexperienced and chaotic), like some blockbusters tend to do.
At the same time, we shouldn’t pretend that this film invented strong female characters for Bond, especially after we’ve had Eva Green and Judi Dench.
Meanwhile, James Bond himself has a very satisfying arc in this film, which isn’t too dissimilar to Tony Stark’s arc in Avengers Endgame , with a bold pay off in the third act. I’m happy that this film gave us confirmation that Mads Mikkelsen didn’t end up castrating Bond during that scene in Casino Royale.
It’s paced very well, more like a traditional action film and less like a drama, which was the case for Skyfall and Spectre. Don’t let the runtime intimidate you, it doesn’t feel longer than 2 hours.
And finally, the whole thing just looks great, it’s produced excuisetely. The cinematography isn’t quite Skyfall level, but Roger Deakins is an impossible bar to clear for any cinematographer.
Unfortunately, this film really struggles with its tone, bouncing between some cartoony stuff and very dark, dramatic moments.
It wants to honor the traditional Bond stuff, but at the same time it can’t let go of the roots of the Daniel Craig iteration, which makes it feel like an uneven artistic vision, because the foundation of Craig’s Bond rests on this idea that this isn’t the traditional Bond.
It’s going for the same tone as Skyfall, meaning its pretty serious, while also incorporating some campy stuff with the plot and the villain (but never going into straight up silly territory, like Spectre).
The problem is that you could still take the villain and the plot seriously in Skyfall (Bardem is still scary despite the camp, the hacking plot feels grounded), and that isn’t the case here, the plot goes too much into sci-fi territory for that.
Also, Rami Malek didn’t leave much of an impression on me, the accent is wonky and he feels like a stock villain (very much like Waltz in the last film). There’s not really an interesting motivation there, or an interesting evil plan. It’s a campy and theatrical plan, and it feels very familiar.
Finally, this film can be fairly predictable at times (for example: Matilde being Bond’s daughter was extremely obvious, but they still try to somewhat play it as a twist. The same goes for Lea Seydoux being framed in prologue.).
So, it’s good, it pushes the creative boundaries of what a Bond movie is in some ways, which is the best stuff.
But I kinda hope they bring in someone with a fresh, fully realized artistic vision to really shake things up again for the next reboot.
7/10
Ps for the Bond producers: please, please make a spin off with Ana de Armas’ character.
I had heard good things going in, and I was still thoroughly impressed. This is definitely my favorite movie I've seen this year, and quite possibly in the past few. While he is at some of his best in the movie, very little of that has to do with Nicolas Cage.
There is way more substance than the trailer gives you clues to. Outside of the rich narrative, the film is a masterclass in "less is more" to illustrate complex subjects through well executed inference. Michael Sarnoski's writing and directorial debut demonstrates some of the best storytelling skills I've seen in a long time. This will be a piece I point to for a while on effective filmmaking.
Underneath the novel premise of the movie is deep subject matter and one of the more mature explorations of grief and purpose in life. I wouldn't call this a feel good movie, but rather one that lays out a difficult but healthy and necessary path to dealing with tragedy and loss. I called Manchester by the Sea on of the best movies on grief ever made, because it showed how broken it can make people. Pig is an answer to it that shows the health of acceptance and recognizing the value in what we chose to spend our time doing.
Whoooo Doggy.
This'll probably be the last place I explain this but I used to be one of those guys who hated Megan Fox. I refused to watch Jennifer's Body in part because of that (and in part because it looked TERRIBLE, in retrospect of course it was a Spring Breakers level of reversal). That said I watched Jennifer's Body and as I said in that review it blew. me. away. With how excellent and funny and interesting it was. Between that and Lindsey Ellis' video on Megan Fox in Transformers[2] and that video with Jimmy Kimmel coming around yet again only this time it finally clicked. I've basically done a 90 degree turn on Fox. I'm basically neutral. I'm perfectly willing to accept her as an actress in movies I want to see. I've been rather eager to see what she does next.
Then I heard about Rogue. At first I hear she was leading a mercenary crew to rescue yada yada yada and honestly I didn't like it. Fox is still a petite, super attractive woman. I'm actually perfectly willing to see her in an action role even one where she isn't a sexy demon beast or whatever but this is one of the few roles I wouldn't have picked for her.
Then I saw the trailer and it was basically everything I was worried about. She's like a model in fatigues. But hey I've definitely watched much much much worst movies for less. I figured I'd give it a shot.
Honestly the first thing I compare Rogue to is Hustlers. Hustlers was a movie about strippers from the strippers perspective that was so well crafted, so well written and acted and framed that even in a movie that gave me Jennifer Lopez looking like she's at the top of her game oozing sex in a way that for whatever reason didn't come off cheap. Popped Lizzo's big girl behind in a thong throwing all that weight around. It's a fantastic movie. Just good film making. And in spite of that I never for one second buy in that Constance Wu the main character is a stripper. She screams it in literally every scene she's in... not a stripper. Someone pretending to be a stripper. And yet.... I don't care. It never bothered me. I never saw her as a stripper but the movie is so good I never needed to.
Rogue is kinda like that, but in reverse. Rogue is one of the dumbest things I've ever seen. I will watch this movie again just so I can point out all the stupid insane dumb things that happen CinemaSins style. None of these characters make sense. From the moment they casually tossed one of their own mercenaries out of a moving car when he got killed to when it happened literally twice. The bad guys[1] are just SO dedicated to hunting these three girls that no matter how many of them die, they're still running guns up to die. The hostages who were literally kidnapped from school, beaten (but not raped?) and kept in cages and pick the worst battles in history. In the middle of an escape one refuses to wade into a river crying about how she needs a break. Do you not understand what they're going to do if they catch you? Everyone else went across the calf deep water why would you demand to stop? Of course the movie tries to justify this by having her actually get eaten by a gator but gator would have left her along if she was with the group and thematically doesn't make any sense to the themes of the movie. When one of the mercs is bleeding they demand to know what's going on in full Karen effect. Ladies you're teenagers not medics. You don't even know or like him why would you get to know what's going on with his triage? They don't trust the man who saved their life because he admits he used to work for the bad guy. Everyone is just SO STUPID. I haven't seen this level of stupidity since Avenue 5 which is a hilarious comedy about a Space Gilligan's Island with one intelligent person and a shipfull of people at 3 different levels of stupid. It's worth watching for that one episode alone. It's so macabre and funny.
And yet, my worries about Megan Fox were justified. She can't pull off military gunner that well. She doesn't have the body for it. That said she tries. She's the only character who actually seems like she's taking anything seriously. There's an unnecessary "she's a GIRL?!? and military!??!?" dialog at some points. It serves no purpose the movie isn't about her being a girl with a gun. There's no reason for anyone to not trust her character's bona fides as the leader of this mercenary group. But again Megan Fox showed up on set to WORK. She goes seriously, not overly cheesy but with some snark when needed. She can relate to her men without trying to "be one of the guys". She's not one of the guys. She's the boss and she acts like it. She gives orders well, she controls the rescuees well. Megan Fox is the only one in this movie that makes any sense. It's a shame the movie can't manage to warp around her. Everything else BUT her is so bad including the closing tag trying to tell us that captive lions are an issue which has nothing to do with the plot and most will call hypocritical in light of the real lions used (at the end) of the film.
Rogue is a bad bad movie but it does still leave me interested in what Megan Fox does next.
[1] (hmm actually at one point they DO suggest an amount of religious zealotry)
[2] Framing Megan Fox: Feminist Theory Part 3 | The Whole Plate: Episode 7 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKyrUMUervU]. Highly recommend it completely changed my perspective on the characters in Transformers. It's still a terrible movie but wow apparently for that first one the writers were at least trying and Michael Bay really went hard ruining it.
