Jodie Foster, Sterling K Brown, Sofia Boutella, Jeff Goldbloom, Jenny Slate, Zachary Quinto, Brian Tyree Henry, Charlie Day, Dave Bautista, and Kenneth Choi. If that’s a cast you can get behind, this movie please you. It feels like its first and third acts were written first and someone was given the weekend to edit the middle. Leaving aside a heavy-footed second act, this is a rare film in a summer of blockbusters and franchise excess: an ensemble movie with modest ambitions and a fresh setting, that sometimes relies a little too heavily on family bonds to push itself through to the end.
This was one of those movies I learned about from a friend, took one glance at the cast list and decided not to learn anything more about the film. The way trailers are built for the most part ruins my enjoyment of movies. A poorly constructed trailer will reveal too much, spoil jokes or twists, when really it should tell you as little about the film as possible without being duplicitous. That being said, I don’t even really mind trailers that show footage that straight up doesn’t make it to the final cut of the film. I like when trailers get in on the game of storytelling and misdirection, or think of themselves as an extension of the movie itself, not a commercially necessary concession. That’s enough about trailers. The point is, I thought I’d like this film, so I set it aside waited.
Friend compared the film to the Magnificent Seven reboot (2016) with Chris Pratt in terms of a movie where the magnetism of each individual on the ensemble cast sort of forces people to behave in unusually tense or brash or just generally inappropriate ways. Haven’t seen a film with such a nice mishmash of actors in a while. Free Fire was more Phone Booth than I would’ve liked, and it was far less diverse. Here we’ve got Sterling K Brown being a cool cucumber, Jodie Foster delightfully unfazed, Charlie Day being a dickbag, Sofia Boutella reminding us why we loved her so much in everything else she’s ever done but more, and Dave Bautista is funny as hell even when he’s not blue. In fact, he may be funnier when he’s not reduced to a single shtick.
Overall, we’re 2/2 since wife’s European vacation began, and I’m genuinely impressed we’ve kept this going for as long as we have.
PS. Saw a really fun trailer for a film from the producers of Cabin in the Woods and the screenwriter of Arrival called Bad Times at the El Royale that I’m really excited for now (October).
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