A sophisticated spin on miniature golf will open in downtown next year. Puttshack is coming to the Shops at Houston Center.
Unlike standard miniature golf courses, Puttshack adds both technology and a high energy, nightclub-style atmosphere to the experience. The venue's "Trackball" records each person's score, eliminating the need for pencil and paper — and making it harder to cheat.
In addition to balls that keep score, Puttshack will offer four, nine-hole courses with over the top designs that add interactive elements beyond the typical windmills or water hazards. Design elements like the "Supertube" make it easier to score a hole-in-one.
“Houston is a booming, top priority market for us, and we are very excited to be an anchor tenant in the Shops at Houston Center,” Puttshack CEO Joe Vrankin said in a statement. “We can’t wait to bring the Puttshack experience to Texas and continue to expand our presence in dynamic, energetic communities across the entire U.S.”
In addition to miniature golf, Puttshack offers a full range of food and drinks, including cocktails, beer, and wine. Food options include lots of shareable plates, salads, burgers, and more.
Choosing the Shops at Houston Center puts Puttshack in a prime location near other downtown attractions such as Discovery Green, the Toyota Center, and the House of Blues. The 26,000-square-foot venue is expected to open in late 2022.
First opened in London, Puttshack made its U.S. debut earlier this year in Atlanta. In addition to Houston, the company has announced plans to open in Nashville, Tennessee; Miami; Boston; and a suburb of Chicago.
The story of Dr. Frankenstein and his monster is now over 200 years old, with Mary Shelley’s book having been adapted or referenced in close to 500 films. Less common is the character of The Bride of Frankenstein, which existed in the original text but has more often than not been excised in adaptations. Writer/director Maggie Gyllenhaal has tried to rectify that by giving the character a big showcase in her new film, The Bride!.
Gyllenhaal has reimagined the story as one in which a woman named Ida (Jessie Buckley) becomes possessed by the spirit of Shelley (also Buckley). At the same time, the already-existing Frankenstein’s monster (Christian Bale) approaches Dr. Euphronius (Annette Bening), who specializes in reanimation, with the request to make him a wife. When Ida falls to her death in an “accident” involving her boyfriend (John Magaro), the ideal corpse becomes available.
After Ida’s resurrection, she and the monster become restless being studied by Dr. Euphronius and decide to break out to experience the world. The world, naturally, is not exactly welcoming to them, and soon the couple are on the run for causing mayhem, including a few murders. In hot pursuit are detective Jake Wiles (Peter Sarsgaard) and his assistant, Myrna Mallow (Penélope Cruz), as well as other authorities.
It’s clear that Gyllenhaal wanted to merge the Frankenstein story with Bonnie & Clyde, especially since she sets the film in the mid-1930s. And that wouldn’t have been a bad idea if having the monster and The Bride going on a crime spree was truly the focus of the movie. But most of the time there’s less intentionality in their misdeeds and more confusion, leading to a muddled plot with no clear direction or end goal in mind.
One of the biggest problems is that Gyllenhaal starts the energy of the film at an 11, giving her and everyone else nowhere to go but down. She dabbles in multiple different tones, at times going the straight drama route and other times making what seems like full-on camp. At one point, she even has the monster and the Bride in a dance sequence set to “Puttin’ on the Ritz,” which would be hilarious as an homage to Young Frankenstein if the film weren’t so disjointed.
Most baffling of all is what Gyllenhaal wants from The Bride character. She morphs multiple times over the course of the film, from close to unintelligible at the beginning to rough-and-tumble at the end. There are hints at the lack of control she has over her autonomy, including Shelley’s possession of her and the monster lying to her about her past, but any commentary that Gyllenhaal might be trying to make gets lost amid the oddity of the film as a whole.
Both Buckley and Bale are all-in for their performances, which definitely fall in the “love it or hate it” dichotomy. Each scene is pitched so high that there’s little nuance to either of them, and neither is on par with their previous Oscar-caliber roles. The high-powered supporting cast of Bening, Sarsgaard, Cruz, and Jake Gyllenhaal is watchable based on previous roles, but none of them elevate this particular movie.
Whatever intentions Maggie Gyllenhaal had in making The Bride! are only halfway legible in a film that can never find its tonal footing. There has rarely been subtlety in movies featuring Frankenstein’s monster and related characters, but this one makes all the others seem like stuffy dramas in comparison.
