Guillermo del Toro. Some people love the movies he has directed. Some people don’t love them. I am starting to land in the second group. I know he found his early cult following with movies like Hellboy and Hellboy II while also receiving critical accolades for films like The Orphanage and Pan’s Labyrinth. For me, his movies aren’t must-see (I’ve had Pan’s Labyrinth on my list of movies to watch for years, but each time I might want to watch it, I put something else on instead). Hellboy and The Orphanage were both okay, but del Toro is no early M Night Shyamalan (The Sixth Sense, Signs). While Crimson Peak has received mostly positive reviews (69% on Rotten Tomatoes), it hasn’t resonated with audiences. Its marketing campaign has hindered its genre identifier, such as humor, mystery, suspense, romance, or drama. This movie attracted del Toro’s best-ever cast ensemble (Mia Wasikowska, Jessica Chastain, Charlie Hunnam, and Tom Hiddleston. Still, with an estimated budget of $50 million and only half of that amount accumulated in revenue from the first two weekends, Crimson Peak might barely break even. This movie is by no means great. It was an okay watch, but my life certainly would not have been altered if I had not seen it. I absolutely will never watch this movie again. It certainly is not a horror film, so even though the previews look scary and are categorized as such, you won’t be scared. If you like del Toro’s other movies, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed by this one. If you’ve never seen one of his movies before (other than Pacific Rim), I suggest watching either The Orphanage or Pan’s Labyrinth at home and base your decision on your fondness for either of those movies.
All posts by bryanbuser
A History of Violence (2005)
I recall seeing A History of Violence in theaters for the first time in 2005. It was not what I was expecting at all. The movie was decent, but it didn’t quite live up to my expectations. This was also when I started to get into the Oscars. I remember being flabbergasted when William Hurt (The Doctor, Children of a Lesser God) received a Best Supporting Actor nomination. At that time, my issue with his nomination was that he appeared in only one scene (basically the last scene in the movie). To warrant this acclaim, you needed to be on the screen for more than 15 minutes. As I watched it again (for just the second time ever) last night, I realized that he didn’t deserve the nomination, not because he was only on the screen for 15 minutes, but because his performance sucked. He was such a minor character that anyone could have played this role, and it wouldn’t have affected the movie. If anybody deserved a nomination for this movie, it would have been Viggo Mortensen (The Road, Eastern Promises), who, as he always seems to do, hit a home run as this movie’s lead.
Room (2015)
The Road meets Life Is Beautiful meets Panic Room?
Little-known director Lenny Abrahamson (Frank, What Richard Did) may have just quietly crafted the most beautifully disturbing and profoundly affecting movie of 2015. As I wrote my review of Steve Jobs yesterday, I tried to remember the last time I was moved to tears while watching a movie. Ironically, while Steve Jobs brought out almost no emotion in me, two of director Danny Boyle’s previous films (Slumdog Millionaire and 127 Hours) had a profound and lasting impact on me and my life. Those two movies were nearly perfect. While Abrahamson’s Room is by no means perfect, it is rich, intelligent, gut-wrenching, and, unfortunately, a little too real.
I will provide spoilers for this movie because it is a vital film that deserves in-depth discussion. I will let you know when these spoilers are revealed, so you can continue reading for now if you haven’t seen the movie. I’m assuming you’ve watched the trailer. If you haven’t, you can watch the trailer now, or do what I did and see the movie. However, I would do one of the following two things before continuing with this review. I didn’t know how much of an impact Room would have on me when I went in. I learned a little bit about the film going in. I didn’t know how little I knew. This movie will appear on many critics’ end-of-year top 10 lists and will likely receive some severe Academy Award nominations. I hope that more moviegoers will give this movie a chance. Is it slow? Yes, it is not The Avengers. Is it more important than The Avengers? Yes, it’s like 1000 times more important than that money hog. It might be the most important movie of 2015. It might be one of the most important movies of the last decade. When lesser movies would have stopped, Room stepped full-throttle on the pedal. Room is a challenging film to digest, and it will feel uncomfortable at times for many moviegoers. While not currently my favorite movie of 2015 (it’s currently #2 for me), this is the best-made movie of the year.
Steve Jobs (2015)
The much-anticipated Steve Jobs exists so much as a single entity that we may forget that the 2013 Ashton Kutcher Jobs movie ever existed. Steve Jobs has been a much bigger hit with critics (85% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes versus 27% rotten) and audiences (the 2015 movie earned more than half of what the 2013 movie grossed in its first week alone). While neither Kutcher nor Michael Fassbender (Shame, 12 Years a Slave) looks anything like the actual former CEO of Apple, Fassbender is a much more credible dramatic actor than Kutcher ever will be. That is reason enough to give Steve Jobs the nod over Jobs if you debate which one to watch. This review will not compare the two movies, as I have not seen Kutcher’s Jobs and do not plan to do so. For whatever reason, I wasn’t looking forward to the Fassbender vehicle as I thought I would have been, and it turns out that trepidation was justified. Steve Jobs was a decent movie that I can only recommend with the caveat that, while you might like it, you won’t enjoy it as much as you had hoped.
Horrible Bosses 2 (2014)
Horrible Bosses wowed audiences ($117 million) and won over most critics (69% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes) in the summer of 2011. The unlikely comedy starred three guys in their late 30s/early 40s who absolutely hated the bosses they worked for so much that they plotted ways to get even with them for making their work lives so miserable. With an unlikely group that included two Best Actor Academy Award winners (Kevin Spacey, Jamie Foxx) from the last fifteen years, signed on as supporting characters, this cast was a who’s who in Hollywood. The movie is hilarious and is definitely worth watching. The same critics who lauded the Horrible Bosses seem to be the same ones crushing Horrible Bosses 2 (just 35% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes). While I wouldn’t say the sequel was better than the first one, it was comparable in terms of laughs. While the formula is the same, the jokes are new and original, and the payoff is just as good as the original. With that said, I hope that this franchise quits while it’s ahead. I could see a potential Horrible Bosses 3 resulting in an utter disaster.