jayenjr

From someone who enjoyed Jordan Peele's Get Out and his comedy skits with Key, and going by the glowing reviews Nope got, I thought this was worth the ticket price and sacrificing 2 1/2 hours of my sleep time.

Nope, it wasn't. Pardon the pun.

Often, I felt like I'm slipping into a M Night Shyamalan movie - marginal characters played by unknown, sprinklings of irrelevant philosophy, plot parts moving back and forth in time to explain the narrative - without actually doing so. I asked myself, "where did I see this?"

Oh yes, in Shyamalan's The Happening. Same stuff. You don't know WHY the central events were happening, what caused them, and both movies are filled with characters or plot parts that don't add to the narrative, and finally, an ending that leaves you with, "what just happened"? And "why"? Btw, since UFOs are a global attraction, why didn't the govt or armed forces get involved?

Peele should next try to make a movie with a linear plot. Leave out the horror element for a backdrop. He should attempt to first build the central story line, and after that determine if he can add relevant or necessary material that support the plot, instead of dragging it down a rabbit hole.

Nope fails at this. For e.g., what's with the chimp attack, what does it have to do with the fabric - like aliens? Nope, we don't get an explanation. All the chimp scene does is add 20 or so unneeded minutes to the movie.

More often than not, we go to see a movie for the thrill and escapism. Movie makers should first attempt to keep things simple, so the audience can at least stay with the plot.

And Shyamalan found this out the hard way with After Earth and The happening, but after that, he kinda made his way back to the critic's and audiences heart. He doesn't always succeed, but at least his name Is still blipping on the public's radar.

At the rate Peele is going, where every subsequent output becomes more mediocre than its predecessor, I don't foresee it'll take a long time for him to release his version of After Earth or the Happening.

I hope it doesn't happen to Peele, cos he's likeable and enough of a genius from his Key & Peele days to be able to linger on long enough in public view.

Well, let's get something out of the way. No other shark movie will ever top Jaws. Even Jaws remake didn't top Jaws. With that out of the way, where does Under Paris figure in the pantheon of the many other shark movies that followed Jaws?

Considering that we've been fed with a truck load of crappy shark movies since the days of Jaws, I approached Under Paris with trepidation. Was it gonna be a Jaws 4, Meg, Sharkanado, 47 meters down?

Well, I'm happy to report that, Under Paris is closer in terms of rank with The Shallows, probably THE shark movie that comes closest to Jaws in terms of entertainment value.

Sure, it's premise of climate change causing sharks to move to the freshwaters of the river Seine in Paris might be a tad preposterous, but once you get that out the way, what Under Paris strives to give you is pure entertainment delight that is topped with generous suspense, decent acting, shark menace and the resultant bloodfest, brilliant camerawork. The pace hardly slows down, and there's enough in most of the scenes to hold your interest. That is, even when the irritating environmentalists show up to lament about how people mistreat ocean life and do their SJW act, you find yourself still willing to put up with it, because you know there's a greater action waiting to be revealed beneath the surface (pardon the pun). And for once, moviedom lets SJWs reap the consequence of their juvenile POV, in this case, the silly attempt to treat a man-eater ala a cuddly house poodle. I went "Yippee".

And boy, when the action scenes arrive, does they bowl you over or what? No moment is wasted with silly shark vs people battles, ala Meg. Instead, what team Xavier Gens proceeds to give us is innovative shark frenzy in the underwater catacombs of the Seine. Improbable perhaps, but it's all executed brilliantly, so much so you don't spend time thinking about its sensibility.

In a summer that already has its fill of movies that are below their hype (eg Furiosa), give this one a chance. You'll come out pleasantly surprised.

When Fury Road was released, it delivered by taking the Mad Max saga into a stratospheric level of action and practical effects. Despite the plot being one of the most linear for an actioner, it satisfied fans by both retaining Max's travails as part of the central plot, plus introducing Furiosa as the next butt kicking female action hero, worthy to stand alongside the likes of Ripley or Sara Conner. With that, it kicked the Mad Max universe into occupying a more ferocious gear. Sure, the wasteland remains the backdrop, but Fury Road's audacious action, monstrous vehicles and jaw dropping stunts, helped Max fans rejoice that their hero had found new life beyond the Mel Gibson years.

So, armed with six Oscars and a set of decent box office numbers for an R-rated fare, it seems fair game that, eight years later, George Miller returns with another chapter in the saga, in the form of Furiosa's origin story.

On account of how Miller had managed to elevate every release of the Mad Max saga into a higher experience, we have every right to expect Furiosa to do the same.

Alas, for there it falls apart.

Every other Mad Max instalment revved into high-octane action pretty much from the word 'go', without audiences needing to wait long intervals. That's not the case with Furiosa. Apart from a tame chase sequence at the beginning, which is a whimper when compared to the gargantuan action that defined other instalments, you need to wait bout 40-50 minutes before the familiar guzzoline-soaked engines kick into high gear. And when they do, it doesn't have anything we haven't seen before. Furiosa' action portion is more of a been there, done that.

Now, that itself is not a bad thing. The John Wick sequels too, offered pretty much the same in the shootout department. But JW retained interesting characters to color our experience along the way. Plus, every now and then, each JW sequel managed to introduce something novel in the action sections. Furious fails at this.

There are lengthy down - time moments in-between action scenes, filled with back stories and dialogues. At times, such moments are even filled with pseudo philosophical rhetoric, if only to help us feel more for the character. That's doesn't cut it for a series that has always maintained action at its core.

Even then, earlier Mad Maxes filled spaces in between the action, with colorful characters. Supporting characters had enough charm to make us drawn to them. I still remember the Feral Kid, the Gyro Captain, Aunty Entity, Humungus, Immortan Joe, Rectus (the Fury Road versions).

Hardly anyone from Furiosa registers. The younger Immortan and Rectus only occupy narrative space in the film, their parts made up of family meetings and snarling around. The role of the colorful character is left to Chris Helmsworth's Dementus, but his Dementus is a hodge podge of traits, and so, hard to pin down. He is over-the-top, has weird fashion sensibility (walks around with a teddy bear on his belt - what does that even mean??), cruel yet funny, visionary and yet foolish.

As for Anna Taylor, she may be a credible actress in other projects, but her Furiosa lacks the screen presence found in Gibson's, Hardy's and Theron's portrayal of their respective characters. And every other Mad Max series also stood on the shoulder of their lead's screen presence. This is therefore, not the right vehicle for Taylor, if she wants to venture off into actioners.

Furiosa also fails at its logic; for e.g. How does she continue to ride a bike with one arm in the wasteland, when she had just lost her other arm? Any other person would have died from blood loss. Why doesn't she speak a lot? I mean, is it a common trait in the Mad Max saga that its leads say very little? Was it necessary to have Tom Burke's Praetorian Jack as a Max look alike? At least, Burke's Jack seemed to provide some emotional connectivity that otherwise is near zilch elsewhere. But his role is too limited to elevate the rest of Furiosa.

The plot also fails ending to explain why Furiosa ends up hating Immortan Joe, when, for the most part of the movie, she seems to have settled into live at the Citadel.

Ultimately, the movie's feel can be summed up with Dementus' quote, when he asks Furiosa "Do you have it in you to make it epic?"

Sadly, this is one Mad Max entry that couldn't.