Critics fret that there is hardly any market left for American films made with adults in mind. One reason we worry is because there has been virtually zero interest in films, intelligent or otherwise, about our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Films as powerful as In the Valley of Elah and The Hurt Locker together grossed less than $20 million.
The new film The Messenger probably won’t do boffo box office itself, but this time we can skip the hand-wringing. Unlike most of its predecessors, this aftermath-of-war movie really isn’t very good. Or rather, for maybe a third of its playing time the film is amazing and maybe even important. But for the other two-thirds I recommend copious amounts of popcorn to keep you company.
Let’s start with the good news. The Messenger is more or less a buddy movie (though admittedly a very idiosyncratic one) that follows the travails of Staff Sgt. Will Montgomery (Ben Foster), an emotionally and physically damaged war “hero” (the movie itself supplies the irony), and his partner, Captain Tony Stone (Woody Harrelson), as they make their rounds informing parents and spouses that their loved ones have just died in action. It’s an audacious idea for a film, and in the scenes where Stone and Will are getting their faces slapped, spit on, and cried into by the heartbroken (such as an excellent Steve Buscemi), the film is extremely moving.
The devastated parents and wives come in a variety of ages, races and economic brackets; at times the film feels like a secret roadmap of American grief.
But filmmaker Oren Moverman, himself a former Israeli soldier, has little idea of what to do with his characters when they’re not painfully reciting their “The Secretary of the Army regrets to inform you…” lines. Despite the fact that the two lead actors work well together, and that their characters mesh in an interesting way (turns out Captain Stone is jealous that his enlisted assistant is a battle-tested warrior and he isn’t), the film only works at all when both men are on screen. There’s a strange tinge of Apocalypse Now here, which for a time had me wishing that the gleaming-pated and emotionally spiky Harrelson had played Col. Kurtz instead of the preposterous Brando. Ben Foster certainly seems to be channeling Martin Sheen’s Captain Willard when his character drunkenly smashes up his own apartment.
Actually, Foster’s performance is a big part of the film’s problem. Outside of the “messenger” scenes, Foster mostly seems to be channeling other war movies rather than honest emotion. He’s gotten some good reviews for his work here, but I’d have to rate his performance a dud. The film’s main subplot, Will’s courtship of the newly-widowed Olivia (Samantha Morton), is not so much awkward, and therefore touching, as “huh”-inducing. Really, Sergeant?
Harrelson’s performance, and his character, are much more interesting. Harrelson’s peeling away of his emotionally stunted good-old-boy’s layers often strikes a nerve, but Moverman unwisely has him playing second banana.
Movie Review
Action-packed Kraven the Hunter showcases gritty Marvel antihero
One of the oddest things about the blockbuster era we live in is that while Disney owns the rights to the majority of Marvel comic book characters, Sony Pictures owns the rights to Spider-Man and any affiliated characters. Since they’re sharing Spider-Man himself with Disney, Sony has been trying to capitalize on those rights by making stand-alone films using niche characters that only comic book fanatics would know.
Having exhausted Venom and whiffed on attempts with Morbius and Madame Web, they’re trying again with Kraven the Hunter. Also known as Sergei Kravinoff, Kraven (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) is a self-styled vigilante who, as the film tells it, travels the world exacting vengeance on the truly bad people of the world. He’s the son of Nikolai (Russell Crowe), a hard-edged Russian oligarch, and brother to Dmitri (Fred Hechinger), who is relatively weak compared to the rest of his family.
The origin story has Kraven gaining his animal-like powers - including super-strength, speed, and jumping abilities - as a teenager from a mysterious serum given to him by a girl named Calypso (played as an adult by Ariana DeBose) after he was mauled by a lion. The two maintain a tenuous partnership as adults, with Calypso helping him hunt down other villains like Aleksei Sytsevich (Alessandro Nivola) and The Foreigner (Christopher Abbott).
Directed by J.C. Chandor and written by Richard Wenk, Art Marcum, and Matt Holloway, the film looks and feels enormously lazy, something made merely to hold on to potentially valuable intellectual property. Other than the tense family dynamic between the Kravinovs, little makes sense in the story. Kraven has an indecipherable moral code that has him going after poachers - because he’s part lion? - in addition to other high-powered criminals, with no clear goal except to … get back at his father?
The laziness extends to the action scenes, which feature Kraven being mostly impervious to any damage, whether it’s hand-to-hand combat, knives, or guns. The CGI-heavy scenes don’t even allow moviegoers to enjoy an R-rated bloody free-for-all, as all of the blood splatter is computer-generated, too. Since apparently one Spider-Man villain is not enough, three others make appearances with abilities that are under-explained and CGI that is poorly done.
That’s not even counting Calypso, another Spider-Man villain whose purpose in this film is nebulous at best. Her early connection with Kraven is so coincidental as to be laughable, and her continued reasons for helping him as an adult strain credulity as well. The only saving grace of her presence is that the filmmakers don’t try to shoehorn romance into the plot; perhaps they’re saving that for the (inevitable?) sequel.
Taylor-Johnson has had one of the most prolific-yet-anonymous careers in modern Hollywood, with appearances in big films like The Fall Guy, Bullet Train, and Tenet that have made very little impact. Even as the star here, he fails to hold your attention, with the story and visuals doing him no favors. DeBose has followed up her Oscar win for West Side Story with schlock like I.S.S., Argylle, and this, which doesn’t bode well for her career. At least Crowe gets to chew the scenery.
With a contractual inability to mention the name “Spider-Man,” movies like Kraven the Hunter exist in a weird area that forces filmmakers to make up stories for characters to which most people have no attachment. And just like Sony’s previous efforts, it is a very poor way to spend two hours in a movie theater; avoid at all costs.
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Kraven the Hunter opens in theaters on December 13.