Tag: Elena Anaya

Wonder Woman

Oh goodness, Wonder Woman. At this point, the DCEU has been just shit.

Man of Steel was disappointing, BvS was extremely disappointing, and Suicide Squad was in all ways a bad movie. But my favorite part of BvS WAS Wonder Woman, despite her small appearance. Or maybe her small appearance is what made it better.

Regardless, this is another film that is going to be hard to review. Regardless of quality, it has been hailed online by everyone for being the first modern female centric super hero movie, with a woman director! So they need it to be good and hyped up, because it if fails “Hollywood” will use it as evidence against women super hero movies and we will be stuck with just the status quo.

At the same time, I can still feel be extremely worried, because this film being actually great would mean the fourth time is the charm. That isn’t a saying though for a reason. So I am just skeptical of anything I heard online, just based on the need for it to be good, while other people will be tearing it down just for being anti-DC.

And that is why this review is so late after the film came out. Because it allows time for reflection, away from the biased information on either side.

Armor
Never mind, costume is great, movie A+!

Ares is a dick, that is the real moral of the story. He decided to introduce war to humans, Zeus’ creations! And then they fight, rah rah rah. So then the Amazons are created, to help bring peace to the world. All the gods fuck each other up, basically dying, except for Ares who is weakened into hiding. Zeus gives the Amazons a hidden island from the outside world, and a weapon to defeat a god, on the day that Ares returns to bring destruction to the world.

And then there is Diana (Gal Gadot, but little Diana is Lilly Aspell), the only Amazonian child, made from clay from her mother, Hippolyta (Connie Nielsen). She has a huge drive and wants to be a warrior to help protect the world, and eventually she reluctantly lets her train under Diana’s aunt, Antiope (Robin Wright).

And yeah, Diana grows up and kicks ass! Ready to fuck up Ares as soon as the world goes to war. Oh hey, a plane has crashed in their sea area, what the fuck is a plane? Diana saves the person in it, a MAN, Steve Trevor (Chris Pine). But behind him are a lot of boats and guns. Holy shit, a war, on their shore? No more!

Needless to say, some people die, some information is gained, and Diana finds herself going into the world, near the end of World War I, to look for Ares and put an end to this madness.

Are main bad guys are of course German, Ludendorff (Danny Huston) and Dr. Poison (Elena Anaya). We also have Steve’s secretary (Lucy Davis), a helpful British politician who wants peace (David Thewlis), and a ragtag group of people to help (Ewen Bremner, Eugene Brave Rock, Saïd Taghmaoui).

Amazon
It looks like all the spirals are part of the sword, that would be a sweet cross guard.

The best news out of this whole movie business is that yes, Wonder Woman is the best film in the DCEU. It didn’t have any real competition, and The Dark Knight trilogy isn’t part of the DCEU so shut up about that.

But it still didn’t make it into 4 out of 4 territory for me. And I know, again, a lot of people would put it super high thanks to feelings it made them feel and what it stands for. But the good news is that a movie can be good for various causes, have a message, be the first to do a few things, while still having issues we should be able to address and talk about.

There is a lot of good! Gadot wrecked it. The Amazonian world was awesome. Their warrior spirit was strong. Several stand out scenes including the island beach scene (for badass action), the boat scene (For humor), the village fight scene (for more badass action), generally every time Gadot interacted with the human world in weird ways. It had a lot of rah rah action going that was easy to cheer along with, because hey, the Germans are the bad guys again and we know what to do there.

However, it had points that felt rehashed from other films. And it sucks to hear it, but it has more than a few similiarties with Captain America: The First Avenger. World War I instead of II, a super heroed person helps end the war with a rag tag group of soldiers each with their own very specific strengths. They are fighting an organization on the German side who want to continue fighting at all costs and are developing super weapons before they get stopped.

I hated the Wonder Woman extra group of soldiers. They didn’t add anything to the movie, except add more dudes to take away from the strong woman. They annoyed me, they sucked. I also really disliked the final fight scene with Ares. At some point it just turned into this giant fire and lightning explosion fest that reminded me a lot of…the end of Batman Vs Superman. Oh just gotta get that super CGI destruction in there, regardless of setting. Boom, pow, blah!

I will end this note talking about Chris Pine, because I am a guy and it is expected of me. I thought he was getting cast as the “pretty romance character for the hero” character, like so many women in super hero movies, but then they had to go and make him really great and have a good character arc. So they made him more than just a romance character, what jerks.

Wonder Woman is a great movie and will hopefully lead to SOME big change with the DCEU to stop also forcing so much crap down our throats. A lot can be learned, but remember, a lot can always be improved as well.

3 out of 4.

The Infiltrator

I tried to go into The Infiltrator blind, like a perfect critic, but I ended up reading the IMDB page for both a brief plot analysis and actors. I’m sorry, I failed, I’m not perfect.

The film is directed by Brad Furman, who did Runner Runner and The Lincoln Lawyer, both vary different films in terms of quality and subject matter. Given the cast involved, I certainly hope this is more of a Lincoln Lawyer than a Runner Runner.

Shit, why is this movie not an alliterative title? He could have a thing going. I, Infiltrator would work. Or Informative Infiltrator, that would be fun. But we couldn’t do Informant + Infiltrator, that is too close to just The Informant.

Money Deal Cash Yo
Just looking at the image makes me feel 10 monies more worth.

Robert Mazur (Bryan Cranston), totally a real dude, was a U.S. customs agent who worked in Tampa, Florida in the 1980s. He was one of those guys trying to get Pablo Escobar, to stop so much cocaine from getting in to the US, because Reagan said so. He is getting old and could retire, but he finally has a good idea to “Get these guys!” for good. Despite what his wife (Juliet Aubrey) wants.

He is going to follow the money. Which sure, seems obvious now, but apparently his idea was cutting edge. He got approval from the boss (Amy Ryan) and has to team up with Emir Abreu (John Leguizamo), a kind of crummy agent but who currently has an undercover role in the organization to get him in.

Robert just has to pretend to be a money launderer. Once he gets in the ground level of the business, like with the Gonzalos (Rubén Ochandiano, Simón Andreu), he can then get to Javier Ospina (Yul Vazquez), then a big name like Roberto Alcaino (Benjamin Bratt) and his wife (Elena Anaya)! Speaking of wives, Robert said he only had a fiance, so they had to bring in an agent (Diane Kruger) to pretend to be that as well in order to keep his story straight.

Another agent is played by Tom Vaughan-Lawlor, some corrupt bankers by Art Malik, Saïd Taghmaoui, and Tim Dutton. Olympia Dukakis is his aunt, Joseph Gilgun his actual bad guy body guard, and Michael Paré with a smaller role.

BB
I was just wondering why that “guy from Miss Congeniality” didn’t have a bigger career. Now look at him, drug lord!

Halfway through the movie I still wasn’t sure what I thought about it. My mind was going everywhere. The acting was good from Cranston, Leguizamo, Bratt, and Kruger, yes. But the story felt like it was full of annoying cliches that kept getting on my nerves.

Of course, given that this is a “True Story” I don’t know how many of the cliches ended up being real or not. But one that really bugs me is that since The Sopranos, it seems that every drama story needs to have extreme marital tension or drama, potentially up to divorce. From the text at the end of the movie, it looked like all of that was completely added in for shitty tension and it gets old.

We had silly lines like the wife needing a promise that this would be the last mission (of course, because he is old and we need the movie) and Cranston becoming someone completely different (despite going undercover a lot). There was a terrible scene involving a wedding cake that just was cringe inducing and took me out of the film, it just seemed so silly to drive a simple point home.

Dumb cliches and scenes aside, the ending really drove this movie home into something better. The event where they were able to get a lot of the criminals under one roof was very emotional. They turned these “bad guys” into real people, with families, reason for working with drugs and more. And they all got busted equally. It didn’t drive home the point enough that the War on Drugs in itself is a complete failure, but it makes sense that Robert Mazur wouldn’t mention that in a book where he is the hero.

Pretty good acting and a strong ending. Maybe the film is a bit too long with some cringey moments, but overall it was really enjoyable and a good couple of hours.

3 out of 4.

Mesrine: Killer Instinct

Gangsters have had a place pretty much in all first world countries. Because if they weren’t first world countries, they’d probably just be called Warlords or something similar. Apparently France is not an exception.

beards are in style
Of course, like every good gangster, he needs to have rockin’ facial hair.

Mesrine: Killer Instinct is the biographical film of France’s most famous gangster, Jacques Mesrine (Vincent Cassel). However it only goes over his beginnings, his rise to power, and escape from prison.

There is more to the story than that. There is even worse crimes, and public enemy number 1 status, which is told in the second half (appropriately named), Mesrine: Public Enemy #1. Hmm, I wonder what will be reviewed tomorrow.

We get at least two loves of his life, in Sofia (Elena Anaya) and Jeanne (Cecile De France). The former his first love who didn’t want him involved in crime after his first prison stint, and the latter, a nice partner in crime who wouldn’t let him break her out of prison to save his own life.

We have some bank robberies, kidnapping, you know, the normal gangster stuff. Maybe some extortion. Lots of money. Lots of danger. He was more than a French criminal too, going to both Quebec and the US at least in his crime pursuits. One of his “bosses” is Guido (Gerard Depardieu), aka the only name I’ve heard before actor wise. He also gets an accomplice Jean-Paul Mercier (Roy Dupuis) who helps him out, and helps him break out of prison.

The film ends, with Mesrine out of jail, now on the run with no real plans for his future. He has now killed some more innocent people, and the latest love of his life has left him. Shit, that guy is about to snap. It played out like a “You think you’re bad? You haven’t seen nothing yet!” type moment, and then went straight to credits.

money
You know the jizz in your face motion? It works a lot better with a gun and lots of money.

Think that review was disjointed and random? Well that was on purpose. Since this is a true story with a bit of artistic license, arguably the events in the movie and the next are some form of public knowledge (somewhere). You know he is a gangster, and thus will do gangster things. I just really wanted to show some characters and explain the situation. Because there is a second half to be reviewed later, spoilers don’t really feel like an option in terms of how it ends, so instead the spoilers will be most of the actual details and plot. Hooray!

I thought Vincent Cassel did a kick ass job as a gangster, and I am excited to see where the character goes in the second half of his life.

Some parts were a bit confusing, I am sure the filmmakers didn’t feel the need to explain everything to the French audience, but since I knew nothing I had to figure it out on my own. But it wasn’t that much of a nuisance.

3 out of 4.