RECENT WATCHES: F9: The Fast Saga (2021)

Vin Diesel gets a lot of shit and probably not unfairly. However, one thing is undeniable: The man loves the movies. Diesel's belief in the power of the theatrical experience, how it can bring people together and entrance us all under one massive screen, made him one of the big stars pushing folks to go back to theaters following the COVID-19 pandemic. His insistence that films are best enjoyed on the big screen was surely a factor in "F9: The Fast Saga" being repeatedly delayed for two years until it was safe for theaters to open again. This perhaps saddled the sequel – also Justin Lin's return to the franchise that he had defined, which had arguably suffered in his absence – with expectations it could never live up to. "F9" was intended to be just another entry in this preposterous action series. Instead, it became one of the first big releases after life ostensibly returned to normal. All the muscle cars in the world might buckle under the weight of that, of reestablishing normalcy for millions of people all over the globe. 

Dom Torreto and Letty have retired on a quiet farm, raising their son Brian. That changes when old friends arrive with concerning news: Mr. Nobody, while transporting super-criminal Cipher to prison, was kidnapped by a mysterious agent. Dom quickly deduces that the responsible party is his long-lost brother, Jakob. Soon, the "Fast" team reassembles to chase after two halves of a device that can hack any computer system in the world. Jakob, a rogue agent with plans of world domination, is after the device too, as well as the young girl who can activate it. The mission will reunite them with friends and enemies they thought where gone and take the team around the world and beyond. 

During "F9's" quiet prologue on Dom and Letty's farm, his son asks the action hero who God is. This same moment highlights the cross medal that has become Dom's trademark symbol. Is this, an utterly ridiculous action sequel seemingly most concerned with absurd new ways to blow shit up, asking serious questions about the existence of the divine? That seems to be the case. During the first major action set piece, the series obnoxious comic relief Roman Pierce miraculously survives two events that should've killed him. What could have been a meta joke about the typical action protagonists' immunity to all injury becomes a reoccurring theme. Is the "Fast" team impossibly lucky or somehow being protected by a higher power? The spiritual side of the film reaches its apex during a moment where Dom seemingly dies for a minute and visits his father in the afterlife. Having faith and trusting in the powers-that-be does indeed lead our heroes through another set of improbable circumstances. 

This is, admittedly, a gutsy theme to introduce in a series that doesn't typically seem that concerned with deeper ideas. Inevitably, this premise eventually dovetails with the most prevalent theme in this franchise. Despite his highly memed on discussion of family, we learn in this film that Dom has never forgiven his brother for his apparent role in their father's death. The fear of losing loved ones, and the drive to protect his family no matter what, drives Dom more than ever. (This idea also emerges in a key character returning from the dead in fuzzily explained fashion.) Unsurprisingly, forgiveness is eventually offered to Jakob, despite his super villain status. If the "Fast" movies are about family, above all else, "F9" considers the actual sacrifices necessary to keep those bonds together. 

That I'm managing to find any heady themes at all inside "F9" is impressive, considering this is the entry in the franchise most detached from reality. Lin and his co-conspirators were determined to top the over-the-top action in the previous films. Early on, Dom is swinging his Charger over a gorge by tangling his front axel in a rope. Later, Dom pulls down part of the ceiling on his attackers, his action hero strength long since risen to the level of superhuman. By the end, "F9" pushes into the realm of science-fiction. Yes, this is the one where Tej and Roman fly a rocket-car into a space. That's a moment so deliriously unrealistic that it seems largely tongue-in-cheek, the franchise admitting its own ridiculousness. Somehow, this is more believable than the shenanigans involving an enormous super-magnet tossing people and cars all through a city that comprises much of the past act. 

While I have no issues with the "Fast" franchise's commitment to beyond-the-impossible action awesomeness, once again the constant doubling-down feels more exhausting than exhilarating. The final act becomes a tangled mess of double-crosses and betrayals, the vaguely defined MacGuffins driving the plot long since getting lost in the mix. The pyrotechnics go to such levels that the final image, of a massive armored bus flipping through the air, almost feels underwhelming compared to everything that came before. As in "The Fate of the Furious," the need to pack the movie as full of as much car-related mayhem as possible, alongside the needs of an ever-expanding cast, means the film concludes in a pile-up of set pieces and subplots. 

"F9" does push above its predecessor in one way. Charlize Theron's Cipher – back this time but not yet graduated to a member of the family – was a delightfully campy villain last time. Still, Dom having a morally ambiguous brother is a far better gimmick for an antagonist. The flashbacks are possibly the best thing about the sequel, expanding on the backstory of its hero and finally showing us the trauma that forged him. John Cena is clearly having a good time as a Bond-style supervillain. (The unlikeliness of a "Nordic strongman" like Cena being related to someone who looks like Vin Diesel is so absurd that the script has to comment on it.) Jakob's eventual heel-face turn, to borrow a pro-wrestling term, can be predicated from his first second on-screen. There is something satisfying in watching it unfold though. 

While far from a box office failure, "F9: The Fast Saga" did not join the billion-dollar club like the last two entries in the series. I don't know if this speaks to movie theaters' slow recovery from COVID or if the public is simply tiring of the turbo-charged antics of these movies. The novelty is definitely starting to fade, as the series focuses more on pushing their stunts further and juggling its wide-ranging family of characters. Despite its flaws, "F9" is still a reasonably entertaining time at the movies. I guess the ridiculous charms of these flicks have long since won me over by this point. [6/10]

RECENT WATCHES: Annabella Comes Home (2019)

The blood-thirsty capitalists love the "Cinematic Universe" model pioneered by Marvel, because it ensures a steady stream of "content." A new superhero movie in theaters every six months means constant growth, ideally, and that's what the Wall Street types are all about. Horror is a genre perhaps better suited to this "keep churning 'em out" method, since it thrives on low stakes and lower budgets. That's certainly a factor in why the "Conjuring" universe has been one of the few successful attempts to emulate the Marvel method. However, a non-stop release schedule produces other problems, beyond simply exhausting creatives and viewers. When the head director and producer of your venture has been roped into another cinematic universe, one that necessitates far lengthier production cycles, it can interrupt your tidy calendar. In brief: James Wan had made a commitment to "Aquaman," which meant "The Conjuring 3" was going to have to wait a minute. However, the series presented its own solution. It all circles back to the Warrens after all, right? Why not simply stick them in the next "Annabelle" movie? This was surely the logic behind "Annabelle Comes Home," which is as much "The Conjuring 2.5" as it is the third entry in the demonic doll spin-off series. The sequel would see Gary Dauberman graduating from writing "Annabelle" movies to directing them too.  

Beginning the night Ed and Lorraine Warren added little Annabelle to their museum of cursed artifacts, the spiritualists quickly deduce that the doll is an especially dangerous item. The focus then shifts to Judy, the couple's young daughter, who is beginning to share her mother's medium abilities. Mary Ellen is the family's reliable babysitter and she only knows about the Warrens' creepy occupation via reputation. Her friend Daniela, who blamed herself for the recent death of her father, knows a lot about the ghost hunters. While Mary Ellen is over to watch Judy for a night, Daniela invites herself in. She sneaks into the museum of haunted objects and, unaware of the doll's power, takes Annabelle out of her case. This starts a chain reaction of terror, the spirit attracting attributes of the doll drawing a whole horde of malevolent entities to the home. The three girls – plus Bob, Mary Ellen's dorky crush who has come over in an attempt to impress the girl – will have to return Annabelle back to her case if they hope to survive the night. 

Each entry in "The Conjuring" universe has acted as a homage to a genre classic. The original was "The Amityville Horror," the sequel was "The Exorcist." The first two "Annabelles" did "Rosemary's Baby" and "The Innocents," while "The Nun" riffed on Bava and Fulci. "Annabelle Comes Home" is set right around Halloween, orange decorations up at the school and pumpkins lining the grocery store. These autumnal vibes pair with a story about a teenage babysitter protecting herself and her ward from evil. There's a more adventurous friend, a bedwetting bully, and a love interest named Bob. In other words, John Carpenter's "Halloween" was the obvious inspiration here. Unlike most callbacks to the ur-slasher, Gary Dauberman and his team do a surprisingly good job of capturing the feel of Carpenter's film. The fashion, soundtrack, production design, and the hum of an old CRT television – showing period accurate programs like "The Dating Game" and "Circle of Fear" – heavily invoke the seventies setting. "Annabelle Comes Home" also captures the pace of a seventies flick. The first act is laid-back, devoted to establishing our heroines and capturing a normal, daily routine. The beginning of the sequel is basically a hang-out movie, with few outwardly sinister events that relish a chance to be around these guys.

Shocking me further, "Annabelle Comes Home" also revolves around a genuinely likable ensemble. Replacing Sterling Jerins as Judy Warren is McKenna Grace, one of those child actresses cursed with the kind of soulful eyes that imply wisdom beyond her years. This suits Judy's growing paranormal abilities, suggesting that the girl is already very familiar with otherworldly terror. At the same time, Grace plays Judy as still a shy, vulnerable little kid, exactly the kind of heroine we root for in a horror movie. Madison Iseman has a relaxed, girl-next-door charm as Mary Ellen, which compliments Katie Sarife making Daniela the bolder, more mischievous best friend. Despite Judy seeing ghosts and Daniela's dead dad, the characters are refreshingly unburdened by backstory. If anything, they are simply really likable. Judy is bullied and quiet, always relatable qualities. Mary Ellen and Daniela do nice things for her out of the kindness of their heart, like bake her a birthday cake. Even dorky Bob, with his humiliating nickname and gawky body language, comes across as a good-natured, everyday guy. His attempts to woo Mary ideally walk the line between actually cute and suitably awkward without stepping over into being off-putting. The group is distinct and I enjoyed spending time with them, which are not always guaranteed in a horror movie. 

That "Annabelle Comes Home" has such an enjoyable cast and pleasant tone is important as, on paper, this is as cynical as a franchise extension gets. By setting the whole movie around the Warrens' collection of relics, this essentially becomes a pitch reel for every spin-off idea the series' creators could think up. Most of the demonic spirits introduced come with catchy nicknames and a gimmicky curse, as set up in the Warrens' literal case files. A white wedding dress brings with it the spirit of a murderous bride. There's the Ferryman, a demonic entity who places coins over the eyes of its intended victims. The Black Shuck shows up as a spectral werewolf. Haunted objects that lack catchy nicknames include a TV that predicts future events, a samurai armor followed by murderous voices, a Feeley Meeley board game with a mind of its own, and a chattering toy monkey. (Likely inspired by the Stephen King story that Wan recently produced an adaptation of.) Annabelle herself has to be squeezed in there too, the demonic doll forced into a co-star role in her own sequel. This leads to an episodic story structure, as each guest ghost gets a set piece devoted entirely to them. The result plays almost like a "Conjuring"-themed anthology film, a collection of loosely connected episodes with exploitable premises of their own. 

What could have been a purely mercenary series of teasers for future movies ends up being a lot more fun than that. First off, throwing all these entities together makes this a monster mash, which I can always enjoy. Secondly, Dauberman shows some skill at creating ambiance and mood. Rather than the shock-a-minute style favored by Michael Chaves, Dauberman takes his time setting up each scare. When the jump comes, they are inevitably very loud. However, "Annabelle Comes Home" focusing as much on a shadowy, dusty ambiance as the shrieks create more of a fun house atmosphere. This is the fun kind of boo-show, rather than a tedious one. There are screaming spectres and people being dragged across the floor by unseen forces but only after the care has been taking to build up to it. Michael Burgess throws in some first person POV shots whenever that ghost werewolf is around, furthering the feeling that this is a light-hearted spook-a-blast as much as it is a collection of formulaic loud scares. A sequence where Judy spots the Bride during the day time, that she attempts to ignore at first, successfully brings the kind of childhood fears to mind that has been seriously lacking in "The Conjuring" for a while.

That almost all of "Annabelle Comes Home" is set in and around the Warrens' home creates a creative conservation of location that also helps build up the thrills a bit. Much like David F. Sandberg did with "Annabelle: Creation," the script makes sure to set up as many gags as possible in the first half. Mary Ellen having asthma or Judy having a slow rotating color lamp in her bedroom are definitely going to be important later, which only further sets up the sense of tension later. Being shown how a board game is played or a bell being introduced is an example of how tight the screenplay is, every scene preparing us for a later moment. It's a bit like Hitchcock's old saying about the bomb under the table. We are waiting for these elements to come back around. The movie rewards us for paying attention earlier. The aforementioned gag involving the lamp is probably the first time Annabelle herself has actually been spooky since her first appearance.

I'll admit, I first saw "Annabelle Comes Home" during a time in my life when I had a lot of free time and saw pretty much every horror movie that came out, no matter how mediocre it looked. Based on the lackluster quality of the original "Annabelle" – I hadn't caught up with "Creation" yet – I went into this one with rock bottom expectations. I came away liking it so much more than expected, finding it to be a genuinely fun and sweet horror show. I wondered if simply figuring the movie would suck made me overrate it a bit. However, this rewatch of "Annabelle Comes Home" proves it's actually a decently executed horror movie. Its batch of lovable, misfit characters and cleverly engineered seventies setting works for me so well that I'll go ahead and say it: This is the best, or at least my personal favorite, entry in the entire "Conjuring" franchise. Naturally, this means it was one of the lower grossing installments – though still generated a staggering profit margin – and no future films have come along to pick up on any of the plot points it introduced. Which is a bummer, because I really wanted to know what the story is behind that ghost werewolf. [7/10]

RECENT WATCHES: The Curse of La Llorona (2019)

It is possibly the most persistent piece of folklore in Latin American communities. Popularized by a 1849 sonnet by Mexican poet Manuel Carpio, there's evidence to suggest the myth might be as old as the 1500s, with pre-colonial roots in Aztec mythology. Either way, across countless regional variations, many elements remain consistent. She was often a mother of two children who was betrayed by an unfaithful husband. Like Medea, she drowned her babies as a form of revenge before becoming so grief-stricken that she took her own life. Now the spectre of this woman travels the world, always weeping like a Banshee and calling out for "mi mios." That is the legend of La Llorona, the Crying Woman. In most places, this is little more than a mere boogie-monster story, told to keep children from playing near bodies of water. Or to listen to their elders, as La Llorona is said to snatch any disobedient kid that reminds her of her lost offspring. However, reports of eerie cries persist. La Llorona is, in my opinion, a manifestation of an archetypal premise that has stretched around the globe. Whether it's Lamia of ancient Greece, Lilith of Hebrew myth, Baba Yaga of Slavic stories, or Kuchisake-onna of modern Japanese ghost tales, the idea of a monstrous woman who destroys life, instead of birthing it, seems to have a powerful resonance with our collective psyche. I want to write a book about this someday.

Whatever her origins are or what deeper meaning the story conveys, there's no doubt that La Llorona has become an icon of Latin-American culture. The story was initially told in cinema in 1933, in the first horror movie made in Mexico. It's been adapted many times since then, the wailing ghost truly establishing itself as the country's most prominent home-grown monster when she tangoed with Santo. The same year a critically acclaimed film loosely inspired by the legend came out of Guatemala, Warner Brothers and New Line Cinema would release “The Curse of La Llorona.” After being impressed by Michael Chaves' short, “The Maiden,” it became the first of three films from the director that James Wan produced. “The Curse of La Llorona” was not advertised as part of “The Conjuring” universe and Chaves insists it isn't an official entry in the series. I'm not sure how this is true, when it features Tony Amendola reprising the role of Father Perez from “Annabelle” and gives the demonic doll a cameo. Either way, Chaves has gone on to work exclusively in this franchise since, suggesting “The Curse of La Llorona” was always meant as a test run for the guy.

The first hint "The Curse of La Llorona" is part of the "Conjuring"-verse is that it is set in 1973 for no other discernable reason. Child protective services worker Anna – widowed mother of two kids herself, Chris and Samantha – investigates a woman named Patricia Alvarez. Her two sons have not been at school and Anna finds them locked in a closet with burns on their arms. The kids are taken away from Alvarez, much to her protesting. That night, the two boys are mysteriously drowned. Anna is called to the scene, forced to drag her own kids along. Patricia is suspected of the murders but she blames Anna. That she was protecting her boys from La Llorona, the Crying Woman of Spanish folklore. Anna doesn't believe any of that at first... Until Chris and Sam start to see a weeping spectre in a white gown, calling out to them and beckoning them towards the pool in the backyard. Anna's children are now marked by the curse of La Llorona. She seeks out the help of Rafael Olvera, a former Catholic priest and current shaman to stop the vengeful spirit and save her children. 

One can see why Michael Chaves was recruited into the "Conjuring" universe. "The Curse of La Llorona" shows a similar sort of classy, glossy ghost movie atmosphere that focuses on establishing a sense of place. The best thing about the film is the specificity of its 1970s LA setting. Anna seems to do okay for herself but there's still a sense of her struggling to get by, which she sees far worse examples of at work. Setting the film in a pre-digital era makes it feel more remote, its child characters more vulnerable. Chaves, cinematographer Michael Burgess, and the production designers do a good job of creating lived-in locations that look suitably foreboding. During its best moments, "The Curse of La Llorona" seems to be building towards an atmosphere of creepy dread, like in the first and superior "The Conjuring." A sequence of Patricia's sons wondering a hospital at night or La Llorona running her hands into Sam's hair as she takes a bath are actually almost effectively eerie, as far as the standards of these movies go. 

Unfortunately, every time "The Curse of La Llorona" starts to build up any creepy ambiance at all, the film quickly throws it all away in favor of the loudest jump-scare it can assault the viewer with. Whenever an inkling of suspense or tension starts, it inevitably crashes into a loud shriek. Often literally, as the film is extremely fond of shoving the screaming, ghostly face of its titular antagonist right at us, her corpse-like visage enhanced with some tacky CGI. By its last act, "The Curse" has become an endless cacophony of screams, loud musical stings from Joseph Bishara's thundering score, and spectral leaps at the viewer. It shows a serious lack of balance. Otherwise decent moments, like one of the kids getting dragged backwards through the house or furniture moving in a crowded attic by itself, are rendered totally inert by the constant need to screech at us. The result proves more tedious than scary, the endless bludgeoning of loudness that merely numbs us to whatever effect these individual beats might have had otherwise. 

"The Curse of La Llorona" earned an R-rating without being especially gory or salacious almost certainly because there are so many dead kids in the movie. The opening flashback to 1673, a totally unnecessary scene meant to provide an origin for the wailing ghost, doesn't waste much time before showing us some primary school age youngsters being drowned. Making Anna a child welfare worker causes the theme of parental abuse to be more than an abstract concept. When Anna sees the Alvarez boys imprisoned and with burns, it's literally her job to remove kids from situations like that. However, once her kids are marked by the ghost, Anna suddenly finds herself going through the same dilemma Patricia went through. To the point that CPS gets called on her. The fear of a parent becoming that thing that most disgusts her might've been a powerful theme. However, there's never any ambiguity in the film about the reality of the ghost, the audience knowing that all of Anna's actions are totally justified. What she's doing isn't potential abuse or a meaningful parallel to the other branches of the story. This makes "The Curse of La Llorona" merely a ghost story and not a film about anything deeper, like child abuse or the fear of fucking up your kid that every parent has. 

Perhaps a reason why legends like La Llorona and all the descendants of Lilith have been such a common idea throughout human history is because it reinforces patriarchal gender roles. A woman is a mother, the stories seem to say. To destroy the children she births turns her into a monster that kills all children, everywhere. Least we forget that she committed double infanticide in the first place to spite an unfaithful husband, who the stories never mention much. Societal standards of the time dictate that it's the woman's fault and she deserves the distinction of monsterhood. Not that "The Curse of La Llorona" grapples with any of these ideas. In fact, it's not an especially good representation of the myth it claims to be about. This Weeping Woman seems to do a whole more screaming than crying. She also burns her victims' skin, despite being repeatedly associated with the watery elements. Mikki Daughtry and Tobias Iaconis' script instead treat La Llorona like a generic evil ghost. They invent an underwhelming mythology around the ghost, giving her a weakness to the seeds and wood of the "fire tree" that grew by the river she drowned her kids in. Feels like that should've cropped up earlier at some point in the five hundred years the ghost has been doing this shit, ya know? It turns a specific, culturally resonant piece of folklore into a gentrified movie monster that can be vanquished. 

The most cynical part of me suspects that Warner Brothers greenlit "The Curse of La Llorona" to appeal to the growing Latino/Spanish speaking marketplace, among which horror is a historically popular genre. At the same time, I wonder if risk adverse execs feared an actual Latina lead would be too alienating to the pastier parts of Americans. By which I mean, why does a film about Mexican-American folklore star Linda Cardellini? Cardellini isn't given much to do besides scream and panic, especially as the film goes on, but is still far more charming than the material demanded. She has strong chemistry with the actors playing her kids and Raymond Cruz as Rafael, who brings some dry sarcasm to the part. The movie probably should have been about Patricia Alvarez, played by Patricia Velásquez, instead. Making the lead a white woman threatened by a scary brown legend, who needs a culturally foreign mystic to save her, causes unfortunate racist and exotic implications. Not that weirdly retrograde subtext is out of the ordinary for "The Conjuring" universe. At least the film is not as blatant in being Vatican propaganda as "Annabelle" or "The Nun," though it's still steeped in the idea that Catholic priests are the protector of children, instead of anything else involving children. 

In other words, "The Curse of La Llorona" is not a good movie and is especially not a good horror movie. When I saw it in theaters – Thanks AMC A-List! – I hated it. I went so far as to list it as the 2019 release I enjoyed the least. Perhaps watching "The Conjuring" series in order has made me grow fonder, or at least less annoyed, by this very loud kind of studio spook show. Maybe on second viewing, when you go in knowing you're getting a non-stop jump scare-fest that thoroughly wastes all the potential it has, you can focus more on the parts you don't hate as much. Expectations and all. Perhaps I simply think Linda Cardellini is cute. Either way, "The Curse of La Llorona" pissed me off less on this viewing. It is disposable at best, mildly racist at worst, and is very lame in every way that matters. But I do like the leads and the seventies setting, which counts for something, I suppose. There are better – and much worse – movies about the legendary Crying Woman out there. [4/10]

Director Report Card: James Wan (2018)

9. Aquaman

In 1939, newsstands would be introduced to a superhero inspired by classic tales of seafaring adventure and the myth of Atlantis, ideas likely pushed into the zeitgeist by the naval battles of a quickly escalating World War II. The soon-to-be iconic character was named... Namor the Submariner, created by Bill Everett and first appearing in Marvel Comics #1, published by a company then known as Timely Comics. Two years later, in 1941, competitor DC Comics would introduce their own maritime do-gooder. First appearing in issue #73 of More Fun Comics, and created by Paul Norris and Mort Weisinger, was Aquaman. Though fairly distinct from each other in the Golden Age, the two oceanic defenders would develop suspiciously similar profiles over the years. Aquaman grabbed Namor's origin, as the offspring of a surface dweller and a runaway Atlantean royalty, while Namor swiped Aquaman's telepathic rapport with all water-dwelling animals. Aquaman survived the end of the forties' fascination with superhero comics by being the back-up feature in Adventure Comics, a book anchored by the ever-popular Superboy. That's how a long-time second-stringer – who didn't have his own book or even appear on a cover until twenty years after his introduction – would slowly eclipse his watery rival in terms of public knowledge. That boost in popularity can probably be attributed to Aquaman, now with the civilian identity of Arthur Curry, becoming a founding member of the Justice League of America in 1960. 

That led to the character appearing on the Saturday morning cartoon series, "Super Friends." That show, in one form or another, ran for twelve years. In that time, it would reach a far wider audience than the most popular comic book ever could, despite the typically subpar standards of seventies television animation. While Superman and Batman's reputation survived co-starring alongside Wonder Dog and Gleek, Aquaman's largely did not. The seemingly scope-limiting requirement that his adventures take place near water, and his powers being widely mischaracterized as "talking to fish," combined to make Aquaman a favorite target of hacky comedians for years afterwards. As late as 2004, the character was still public shorthand for a lame superhero among people who don't actually read comic books. That is the year the idea of a big budget "Aquaman" movie became a running gag on "Entourage." Such a concept was considered that absurd and improbable at the time. 

That was before the decade defining success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which turned relatively obscure and easily mocked characters like Hawkeye, Rocket Raccoon and Ant-Man into the stars of billion-dollar grossing movies. Punchline though he may be, Aquaman was still way more famous than those guys. This meant Warner Brothers was completely serious about developing an "Aquaman" movie as part of their somewhat late, largely ill-fated attempt to create a Marvel-like franchise around their pantheon of DC Comics heroes. And comic writers had made many attempts to rehabilitate Aquaman's image over the years. His stories got a lot more intense, his archenemy killing his infant son and his marriage to longtime wife Mera falling apart. He led the Justice League for a bit. He got a cooler costume, quickly abandoned because it was too hard to draw. In the nineties, a well-received retooling from Peter David focused on the mythic fantasy element. That brought with it an edgy new look that included a pirate-like hook hand and beard. When Geoff Johns brought back the Silver Age look and origin – while occasionally nodding at the character's status as the butt of many lame jokes – that was successful as well. Various cartoons and video games leaned into the observation that Aquaman is actually pretty cool, playing up his status as a noble king, a family man, a large ham, an environmental protector, and a legitimate bad-ass that can go toe-to-toe with Superman and Batman. By the 2010s, the likelihood of the public turning out for a big budget "Aquaman" movie seemed totally plausible. 

Thus, Warner Brothers went ahead with the idea, saying in 2013 that a film based on the character was a high priority. Aquaman would appear in Zack Snyder's hyper-grim "Batman V. Superman" before having a starring role in the behind-the-scenes clusterfuck that was "Justice League." While neither film were the hits Warner Brothers needed them to be, casting Jason Momoa as the ocean protector was extremely well received. Especially the decision to make sure the TV heartthrob was shirtless as often as possible. By this time, I was seeing the friends of my mother and other people who have never gone near a comic shop in their lives declaring they "loved Aquaman." Warner Brothers had begun using New Line Cinema's horror flicks as a place to recruit directors who could work efficiently for their superhero productions. This is how James Wan made the leap from "The Conjuring" to "Aquaman." The director chose the character because he perceived him as having lower stakes, seeing more freedom to do his own thing with a less beloved property than a better known one. This promise of "funderwater adventure" was the right instinct to follow. Utilizing the same eye for outrageous action that made "Furious 7" a billion-dollar grosser, Wan's "Aquaman" would defy the odds and also become an eight figure success.

Drawing mostly from Johns' New 52 run, "Aquaman" explains the hero's origins as the son of lighthouse keeper Thomas Curry and Atlanta, aquatic royalty fleeing an arranged marriage. Arthur grows into a defender of the seas, able to breathe underwater, swim at superhuman speeds, telepathically control sea life, lift submarines with ease, and survive freezing, crushing depths. He is reluctant to embrace his status as Atlantean royalty however. The water manipulating Atlantean warrior Mera arrives to try and recruit Arthur. His half-brother King Orm has gone mad with power, seeking to declare himself master of the oceans and start a war with the surface world. As the son of the (still missing) queen, Arthur has the right to challenge his brother for the throne. He's slowly talked into it, beginning an adventure that takes him and Mera on a quest to retrieve the magical trident of the first king of Atlantis and prevent war. 

By 2018, the formula for superhero movies had been well established. You run through the hero's origin and introduce a villain for him to tangle with, hopefully one related to said origin in some way. There's a climax full of CGI destruction, sometimes with a beam of light shooting into the heavens. By the end, our good guy fully embraces his status as a superhero, ready for further adventures in potential sequels gratuitously hinted at in this first film. Working with a script from "The Conjuring 2's" David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick and Will Beall, Wan's "Aquaman" does not challenge this set-up. Barely acknowledging that it takes place after "Justice League," frequent flashbacks establish Arthur's beginnings as the son of two worlds and his training from a wise mentor. The sequence where Mera takes Arthur to Atlantis for the first time, and he's introduced to a dazzling and technologically advanced kingdom he had no idea existed, is clearly inspired by "Black Panther." The plot eventually turns into a standard MacGuffin chase, as Arthur and Mera seek a plot device that will solve all their problems. This takes them to a number of scenic locations, the constant pursuit from Orm's henchmen allowing for frequent action set-pieces. It concludes in a massive underwater war, equal parts "Avengers" and "Lord of the Rings." Shout-outs to the comics appear right on time to get cheers out of the nerds in the audience, a bigger world and history established that future continuations can explore. 

In other words, "Aquaman" is a bunch of phooey, derivative of other movies and comfortable existing totally within the perimeters of its genre. Which isn't to say the movie isn't wildly entertaining. Wan and his team keep the approach light throughout. "Aquaman" is, in many ways, a fish-out-of-water – pun fully intended – romantic comedy. As someone raised on land, thoroughly modern and common in his attitudes, Arthur finds Atlantis to be a strange, unusual and stuffy place. Likewise, Mera is unfamiliar with surface culture. This is illustrated in a cute scene where she makes friends with a little girl in an Italian villa. The two can't stand each other at first but, as Arthur proves his worthiness and Mera lightens up a little, they fall for each other. It's a cute progression, the movie following these two misfits as they learn more about each other's world and slowly develop feelings for one another. It's a good way to introduce the audience to this world and this duo. 

Making "Aquaman" into a partial rom-com plays to its leading man's strengths. In the comics, Aquaman is usually ambiguous about his status as king and often torn between the world he was raised in and the world he was born to protect. How often he uses humor to lighten his load or how much he sees superheroing as a burden or a joy varies from writer to writer. Mostly, he's a serious guy, his wife and family keeping him grounded as he grapples with protecting the seas and tricky Atlantean politics. As played by Jason Momoa, Arthur Curry becomes a long-haired, beer-gulping dude's dude. He is a super-macho brawler who carries a secret pain about being abandoned by his mom and rejected by both the sea and the surface. Mostly, he copes by being kind of a goofball. He's a stinky smart-ass that seems dim (though actually isn't) but mostly rejects the casual sexism once associated with the surfer bro attitude. He's a modern wholesome himbo, designed to appeal to a certain population of women who like their guys hunky and hyper-masculine but also sweet and non-intimidating. This makes Aquaman into a totally different character from what exists in the comics, not dissimilar to how Thor acts in the later Marvel movies. The script bends Aquaman around Jason Momoa's celebrity image as a self-aware sex symbol and chill biker guy, also incorporating his Polynesian heritage into Arthur's backstory. As a fan of the character's traditional portrayal, it definitely took me a little time to adapt to this wildly different take on the character. Momoa's schtick is amusing and he's an affable screen presence, making it difficult not to eventually be won over by him. I don't know if it's how I would've chosen to depict Aquaman in a movie but it is, nevertheless, a winning combination. 

Wan's "Aquaman" never comments on the cultural meme of its hero "talking to fish." In fact, Arthur Curry's telepathic bond with all the animals in the sea is shown as a devastating superpower with many practical combat applications. Don't think for a minute that the movie isn't well aware of how goofy this material supposedly is. Like many modern superhero films, "Aquaman" often uses comedy to let mainstream audiences know that it also thinks this shit is stupid and lame. One of Orm's henchman gets his head dunked in a toilet bowl. The chase through Florence often pauses for disbelieving stares from the locals. Momoa often doesn't go long without cracking a joke of some kind, which doesn't stop when the stakes are high. There's been much debate over taking such an approach to comic book material. When handled badly, random slapstick comedy and constant one-liners can drain any tension or grandeur from the story, coming off as if the filmmaker is embarrassed to be working on this nerd shit and regards what he's adapting with patronizing insincerity, if not outright contempt. 

Perhaps James Wan was a little embarrassed to be working on an "Aquaman." There are definitely times when the film feels too in-on-its-own-joke. However, any director who considers Ed and Lorraine Warren to be real world defenders of good clearly isn't in any place to look down on Aquaman. For as much as the film jokes about its fantastical scenario, there's also a full-blown embracing of the wackiness of what we are seeing here. An octopus playing the drums or narwhals impaling people with their curly horns becoming deadly are silly but it's also awesome. The film is filled with humanoid fish creatures, crab men, laser guns, pocket dimensions and magical tridents. Rather than flee from the more “comic-book-y” elements of the material, the film embraces it. Aquaman rides a giant seahorse, Mera wears a gown made of jellyfish, and Orm actually refers to himself by the supervillain name of Ocean Master. The story is fully absorbed in the absurd mythology of its setting, throwing around names like Xebel and Atlan and the Brine King without any shame.

Another smart decision “Aquaman” makes tonally is packing the supporting cast with sturdy actors who never blink in the face of all this silliness. If Jason Momoa's lead performance is mostly tongue-in-cheek, he's surrounded by performers who play the material as grand opera. Nicole Kidman, as the misplaced queen, and Patrick Wilson as Orm all approach their roles as larger-than-life mythic figures. Wilson brings an edge of Olympian melodrama to his gestures and dialogue, while Kidman is totally committed to the nonsense she has to spew here. Willem Dafoe is similarly straight-faced in the even more standard role of Vulko, a generic wise mentor role imbued with Dafoe's gravelly charm. Amber Heard and Dolph Lundgren – inexplicably cast as daughter and father – aren't consumite pros on the level of Kidman or Dafoe. Heard is never as enchanting as Mera needs to be, doing better as the bitchy straight-woman to Momoa's antics. Dolph does bring some regality to a mostly thankless supporting part. Mostly, it's simply neat to see him in a high-profile film like this after years in the direct-to-video ghetto.  

As in “Furious 7,” Wan approaches the action in a largely theatrical style. The action scene in Italy feels the most like a sequence from one of the “Fast” movies, a high-impact foot chase across the rooftops of the village. People smashing through walls and buildings stand in for cars and trucks flipping and crashing. The climax of this sequence is a cool shot of Black Manta tossed from a cliff, the camera careening down the mountainside with him. The superhero genre allows for flashier special effects, of course. Mera's hard water powers lead to several novel images. When Aquaman boards a submarine under siege from pirates, the movie delights in using the tight interiors of the location to creates some comic panel-like shots. Don Burgess' cinematography suits this material much better than “The Conjuring,” the camera weaving dramatically through the CGI sets. The oceanic setting lends itself to some colorful visuals, like Atlantis being lit by bioluminescence or a flare falling through the deep.

The latter image is the climax of another high-light of “Aquaman.” On their quest to locate the mythical Trident of Atlan, Arthur and Mera encounter the Trench. That's an underwater race of monstrous fish-men, heavily recalling Lovecraft's Deep Ones and the Creature from the Black Lagoon. The set piece, of the monsters swarming around Arthur and Mera on a storm-tossed boat, heavily recalls Wan's horror work. This is not the only time the director is clearly using the superhero movie budget to indulge his inner monster kid. The plot weaves in a lost world setting, allowing some dinosaurs to appear. This is shortly before the movie throws in a proper kaiju, in the form of a Kraken-like enormous cephalopod. All of these elements are taken from the “Aquaman” comics. However, you can tell the chance to include stuff he obviously loves was probably a deciding factor in Wan choosing this superhero over The Flash or anyone else. 

In its climax, “Aquaman” fully embraces its status as computer-generated spectacle. The finale is a massive underwater war sequence, with lots of crustacean casualties, Mosasaur steeds, subaquatic explosions, and every thing that swims and crawls in the sea being weaponized. It is an unending assault on all the senses, unbearably loud and frenetic, with any number of digital effects being tossed directly into the viewer. (Literally if you saw the movie projected in 3D.)  Alternatively, it is a gleefully goofy burst of epic nonsense, the movie going out of its way to top itself in the last half-hour. Just when the film seems to have pushed past the point of total ridiculousness, it's reeled back in for the final showdown between Arthur and Orm, which smartly takes place as a one-on-one melee. If you have the patience or tolerance for superhero movie shenanigans, there's no denying that this is a well done example. I suppose it depends on if you think a fleet of murderous orcas coming to the rescue of a John Rhys Davis-voiced crab monster is delightful or intolerable. 

“Aquaman” wouldn't be a modern superhero movie if it didn't go out of its way to leave some narrative crumbs for a sequel to exploit. This is mostly apparent in the subplot surrounding Black Manta. Anybody a little familiar with the source material probably know that Black Manta is Aquaman's number one foe and most persistent enemy. Ocean Master obviously makes more sense as the bad guy for a first “Aquaman” adventure but he wasn't on the Legion of Doom, so who cares, right? The movie, smartly skipping the militant black separatist or evil autism origins, goes out of its way to establish the personal grudge between the sea pirate and the next King of Atlantis. The distinctively helmeted enemy weaves in and out of the story, never quite justifying his appearances beyond the expectation that he'll get more to do next time. Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, an actor Hollywood was really insisting on turning into a big star around this time, cranks the blustery, sweaty intensity up as high as possible in the part. It's the most blatant example of the movie setting up shit for a follow-up but, I will say, at least the suit looks really good. 

In fact, all the costumes in “Aquaman” are quite good. Arthur suiting up in the orange and green is rightfully treated as a cheer-worthy moment, while Mera and Orm's own duds look suitably accurate to the comic book source material. Rupert Gregson-Williams' score is full of sweeping themes and ear-catching melodies, adding a properly grand feeling. As a final display of the sincerity with which it approaches the characters, the end credits are accompanied by a nineties-style love ballad written specifically for the film. Obviously, I'm unusually fond of this particular strain of bullshit. Considering how little respect Aquaman usually gets as a character, his big movie only being a little self-reflectively dumb might have been a best case scenario. By no means rising above the standards of the genre, it's still a joyfully silly two hours and twenty-three minutes. Any movie that casts Julie Andrews as a sea monster is having too much fun to ultimately denied. That the public ate it up is all the more delightful to me. The “Aquaman” movie pleased this long-time fan while also making this particular corner of the DC universe appealing to a wide audience. It also beat that other aquatic superhero to the big screen by four years, once again solidifying Aquaman as the preferred deep sea defender by the public at large. [Grade: B+]

RECENT WATCHES: The Nun (2018)

After many fruitful years of directing, co-writing, and producing motion pictures for entities such as Lions Gate, Blumhouse, and New Line Cinema, James Wan would form his own production company in 2014. With its distinctive logo of a jet-pack hero – resembling a robot, a vintage diving suit, or a retro conception of an astronaut – fighting off massive tentacles destroying a stop-motion city, Atomic Monster has made exactly the kind of movies and TV shows you'd expect. Namely, low-budget horror films and sci-fi/fantasy action projects for Warner Bros., Universal, and Netflix. The first movie to emerge from the company was “Annabelle” and, unsurprisingly, it's had a hand in every entry into “The Conjuring” universe since. The first time I noticed the Atomic Monster name on a project was “The Nun,” the second attempt to spin one of the spectres battled by the Warrens in the proper “Conjuring” installments into its own franchise. Directed by Corin Hardy, of clever Irish zombie/body-horror/folk-horror hybrid "The Hallow," and from a script by Gary Dauberman and Wan, it would be another box office smash in September of 2018. 

Deep in the woods of Romania stands a centuries old stone structure known as the Cârța Monastery. In 1952, two nuns would attempt to fight off a demonic presence in the castle, resulting in their deaths. One body is discovered by Frenchie, a Quebecoise supplier to the chapel. Disturbed by the report, the Vatican dispatches two agents to investigate further: Father Burke, who determines whether events are miracles or not, and Sister Irene, a young nun about to take her vowels. Irene is recruited because of her familiarity with the local Transylvanian dialect. Teaming with Frenchie, they find an isolated building populated by nuns that insist on praying at all hours to ward off a great evil. The trio are beset by horrific visions and soon uncover the disturbing truth about this place. A Dark Age aristocrat summoned a demon here before Christian soldiers intervened and sealed the entity under the monastery with a holy relic containing the literal blood of the actual Jesus Christ. A bomb dropped during World War II would break the seal. Now, the demon takes the form of a nun to possess and harass anyone staying there. Irene, Burke, and Frenchie fight to stop the evil and restore the seal before the demon escapes into the world.

I'll admit that, after being thoroughly underwhelmed by "Annabelle" and "The Conjuring 2," I checked out of this franchise for a long time. However, I do recall being intrigued by the one or two positive reviews of "The Nun" that compared it to Mario Bava's "Black Sunday." Having now seen the film, I agree that it's not a totally unwarranted comparison. Maxime Alexandre, Alexandre Aja's regular cinematographer, ladles on the shadows, fog, and darkened corridors. This blackness is interrupted by some flashes of hellish reds or cool blues, recalling Bava's later work too. By the time the spin-off puts a fair maiden in a diaphanous nightgown and has her wandering down a darkened staircase with a glowing candelabra, I realized I was in comfortable territory. "The Nun" is a well photographed homage to EuroHorror of the sixties, seventies, and eighties. Aside from Bava, the film most resembles the classic Hammer monster movies, with its wooded surroundings, isolated graveyards, and bright red blood. A moment where someone is buried alive and nearly has their face split open when someone tries to dig them out is an evident homage to Fulci's "City of the Living Dead." Such a deep cut makes me imagine that the appearance of some rather Templar-like knights is a deliberate shout-out to Amando de Ossorio's "Blind Dead" tetralogy. These are not influences I expected to see in a mainstream studio horror movie from 2018. It is, admittedly, a little bit delightful. 

I would like to think I'm a little more sophisticated about watching films critically though. Sneaking in callbacks to horror nerd favorites in your jump-scare fest is the equivalent of jangling keys for babies for guys who wear black "Evil Dead" t-shirts, right? Perhaps. However, actual gothic horror benefits greatly from location. You can make the case that it's a good percentage of the subgenre's strength. "The Nun" only filmed a little inside the real Cârța Monastery, an actual 12th century Benedictine monastery in the Transylvanian countryside. Said to be the most haunted place in Romania, it's been in ruins since the 1440s. However, the movie was shot on-location in Bucharest. Some scenes were filmed inside Corvin Castle and others at Castel Studios, the old stomping grounds of many a Charles Band production. In other words, "The Nun" is awash in actual old world, Eastern European ambiance. That goes a long way towards making "The Nun" feel like an actual spook show from bygone days. The film never scared me but the real gothic locations did make an enjoyably chilly feeling run down my spine. 

It is a good thing that "The Nun" has some bitchin' atmosphere because, otherwise, this is a very silly motion picture. It recalls the desperate, very loud need to constantly scare its viewer that we saw in "The Conjuring 2" and first "Annabelle." The script makes sure to give each of the central characters a tragic backstory that the demonic nun can exploit. Father Burke has a failed exorcism in his past, haunted by images of the dead child and a biting snake. Irene's anxieties of taking on the habit manifest in one spooky ghost nun after another, some of which don't have faces at all. By its last act, the film has descended into a cacophonic montage of freaky images and events happening without much rhyme or reason. Bonnie Aarons' Valak doesn't actually have much to do in the film aside from glower from the shadows and stab someone with a crucifix. Hardy's grasp of atmosphere helps cover up the goofiness of the film's scare scenes a little. When the script starts introducing actual magical relics to save the day, it's hard to ignore how very silly this entire production has gotten. 

That "The Nun" eventually descends into loud, stupid jolts and an increasingly threadbare script – which connects back to the mainline "Conjuring" duo in dumb ways, of course – is a bummer. Not only because it waters down the effective ambiance that had been built up but also because it wastes a likable cast. Taissa Farmiga plays Irene. Getting Vera Farmiga's actual little sister to star in the "Conjuring" spin-off seems gimmicky on-paper. Luckily, Farmiga has a delightfully light and charming presence. Irene is introduced explaining to little kids that God is good and she seems to actually mean it too, making her an easy heroine to follow. A way overqualified Demián Bichir plays Father Burke and never once falters in taking this silly shit absolutely seriously, while bringing enough of a wry smile to the material to let us know he's still having fun. Jonas Bloquet rounds out the trio as Frenchie, being funnier and more charming than was necessary. If the script wasn't a bunch of baloney and the film didn't pile on the CGI shenanigans in the back half, the amusing back-and-forth between these three would be enough for me to recommend "The Nun."

Alas, that's exactly what "The Nun" does. Bitchin' locations, strong cinematography, and likable heroes should've been enough to keep me entertained throughout the entire 96 minute runtime. A script that clearly doesn't have enough ideas to sustain its own premise, that gets bogged down in silly mythology, and the lack of confidence that throwing loud shit at the viewer shows nearly derails "The Nun" after a strong first half. The spin-off still made a staggering 366 million at the worldwide box office, showing that a global audience is absolutely hungry for a glowering demonic sister. Surprisingly, "The Nun" received some decent notices from actual Catholic writers. Considering these movies have probably done more to rehabilitate the Church's reputation in the last decade than every nice thing Pope Francis has said, I'm surprised it took real Catholic spiritual experts so long to catch up. [6/10]

RECENT WATCHES: Insidious: The Last Key (2018)

When the trailers for a fourth "Insidious" movie started to pop up in late 2017, I can recall my reaction exactly: Oh wow, they're still making these. "Insidious: Chapter 3" was the least successful installment in the series, which means it still made 113 million worldwide against an 11 million dollar budget. While that suggests audiences' appetite for these fog-strewn, supernatural shockers was growing satisfied, clearly Jason Blum and his flunkies felt a little more money could be squeezed out of this one. Leigh Whannell was drawn back in to provide the screenplay for "Insidious: The Last Key," the subtitle suggesting perhaps a degree of finality to this one. With James Wan far too busy with Warrens and race cars and Atlanteans, Adam Robitel of "The Taking of Deborah Logan" would be recruited to direct. Jaded horror fans and casual moviegoers were inundated with thrillers like this by 2018. Blumhouse's strategy of keeping budgets modest and finding release dates with little competition – the first weekend in January, this time – still managed to make the fourth trip into the Further a financially solvent one. 

Following the trend started by "Chapter 3," "The Last Key" is another prequel to the original "Insidious," following medium Elise Rainer and ghost hunters Tucker and Specs as they pursue a career as for-hire paranormal investigators. Ted Garza, a man living in Five Keys, New Mexico, reaches out to the trio about the ghostly activity in his home. It's a home Elise knows well. It's the one she grew up in, with her little brother Christian. Elise's ability to see spirits disturbed their father, who became abusive. Especially after Elise was lured into freeing a demon known as Keyface, that killed her mother. Now in her home town, Elise discovers the demons of her childhood still lurk around, possessing the living and threatening her family again... Including her nieces, Imogen and Melissa, the latter of which share her aunt's powers.

Much like the third chapter in the series, "The Last Key" gets surprisingly far simply by shifting Lin Shaye's Elise into the role of protagonist. While Shaye played second fiddle to a teenage heroine in "Chapter 3," she's the primary star of this one. The warm, grandmotherly aura that floats around her makes Shaye an immediately inviting presence. She's nice! You enjoy watching her help people, all the more because she's helping out of the kindness of her heart. Like Carl Kolchak or Mystery Inc. before them, Elise and her sidekick give the impression of blue collar paranormal investigators. Tucker and Specs brag about the cheesy artwork they paint on the side of their van or use their extremely niche area of expertise trying to impress women. Angus Sampson and Leigh Whannell have complimenting energies, different types of nerdiness and awkwardness that work off each other nicely. You can root for this gang, above all else. They are like a version of the Warrens in “The Conjuring” movies without all the weird baggage.

Like every horror movie made in the last decade, all of the “Insidious” movies have been about childhood trauma and grief. “The Last Key” emphasizes the former detail a lot, digging into Elise's fucked-up background. Her father rejected her supernatural abilities, his close-mindedness going hand-in-hand with a peculiar misogyny. He seems to think that children exist to be quiet and female children, in general, exist to be subservient to men. At the same time, Elise carries guilt around for leaving her brother behind in such an environment. Obviously, throughout this journey, she'll overcome this problem and confront the demons of her past. Perhaps a little too literally, as the second half has Elise encountering the actual ghosts of her past in the Further. However, I'll admit, I do admire “The Last Key” for not cloaking these ideas in allegory. This is a movie about overcoming the horrors of your childhood and there's a directness there I like.

Not that we watch “Insidious” movies for their especially deep characters. These are movies about scary faces jumping out of the dark at us, right? Cinematographer Toby Oliver – Greg McLean's D.P. on “Wolf Creek 2” and “The Darkness” who then became a regular on Blumhouse's horror pics, “Get Out” most notably – focuses more on murky, blue-black shadows over the eerie greens and layers of fog seen in the previous entries. This is an early sign that the film will not focus on the funhouse approach of the earlier “Insidouses.” There certainly are several jump-scares, of shrieking women appearing out of the darkness, but it would seem building a creepy, prolonged ambiance of suspense is the main goal here. This is most apparent in an extended sequence that involves Elise going through a series of suitcase in a spooky hallway, building in a drawn-out way towards one of the better scares in the entire series. Considering the “Insidious” movies tend to get silliest when throwing various monster faces at us, “The Last Key” does a better job than usual of avoiding that. 

By the time we got to “Saw IV,” for one example, the series was buried in continuity and backstory. Despite a sliding timeline that can be a bit confusing – this is, chronologically, the second film in the series – “Insidious: The Last Key” mostly avoids those pitfalls. There's a somewhat obscure lead-in into the events of the first movie. That ridiculous, Lipstick Faced Demon gets a cameo. Some of the rules, of how possession works through the Further, get a little weird. The antagonist is a scrawny, demonic figure played by Javier Botet, seemingly the go-to performer for playing scrawny, demonic figures these days. The so-called Keyface creates sparks when he drags his key-shaped fingertips across any surface, which seems like a blatant call-back to Freddy Krueger. Keyface – silly name, by the way – isn't as intimidating or interesting a villain as that guy. The mechanics used to defeat him are especially blurry, which probably reflects how these movies have never been great about that kind of consistency. 

The general reception to “Insidious: The Last Key” seems to be that it's one of the weaker installments. To be honest, I like these movies a lot more when they focus on the quirky ghost hunters rather than the square Lambert family. Bruce Davidson appears as Elise's brother, bringing a little bit of pathos to his handful of scenes. Spencer Locke and Caitlin Gerard are both decently likable as the nieces, playing off Shaye in a charming way. There's a surprisingly brutal head-crushing scene. Adam Robitel would go on to make the “Escape Room” movies for Blumhouse, which I'd wager this movie is a lot stronger than. You can definitely tell Leigh Whannell's scripts were starting to run out of ideas but this point but an extremely likable cast and a handful of cleverly deployed scare sequences makes it worth checking out. [7/10]

RECENT WATCHES: Jigsaw (2017)

Never trust a final chapter, ya dummy. Many times over the decades, producers have tried to goose the falling box office numbers of a long-running horror series by promising this is the last one. As soon as 2011, only a year after "Saw 3D" was advertised as the end of the story, Lionsgate was already discussing doing another one. Eventually, a pitch from Josh Stolberg and Peter Goldfinger convinced the studio to revive the series after six short years. Deciding the talent behind "The Hungover Games" and "Good Luck Chuck" was not cut-out to relaunch their star horror series, the Spierig Brothers would get the directing job. That's the Australian duo behind "Undead" and "Daybreakers," who had an indie hit with "Predestination" the year before. The brothers promised that "Jigsaw" – a better title than the initially considered "Saw Legacy" – would be a "Saw for 2017." What they meant by that can only be guessed at but "Jigsaw" is notable for being the only entry in the series to receive an R-rating from the MPAA without any further cuts. I guess the start of the Trump years left us all thoroughly desensitized, bloody games of torture and self-mutilation no longer phasing the moral guardians. "Paranormal Activity" had also burnt itself out by this point, meaning Lionsgate was able to grab the traditional Halloween weekend release date for "Jigsaw," providing some certainty in an uncertain world. 

Ten years have passed since the death of John Kramer, the twisted avenger known as the Jigsaw Killer. A criminal in a speeding vehicle is caught by police holding a remote trigger, claiming "the game" is beginning again. This is when Detectives Halloran and Hunt begin to discover bizarrely mutilated bodies, each one wearing a bucket-like helmet. They conclude that a Jigsaw copycat is continuing Kramer's plan. In an isolated location, five individuals have awoken in a barn outfitted with deadly traps, forced to play through each one by the familiar puppet avatar and to confess their sins as they try to survive the ironic punishments. Halloran and Hunt team with pathologist Logan and Eleanor, the latter a part of the obsessive Jigsaw online fan base, to try and stop the games before more bodies pile up and find out the truth about who is continuing Jigsaw's legacy. 

Whether "Jigsaw" can said to successfully reinvent the long-running franchise for the mid-2010s is debatable. However, the Spierig Brothers do ditch the aesthetics of the earlier films. The nu-metal visuals of Slimer green lighting, filthy industrial equipment, grungy locations, and obnoxiously "extreme" editing have been left behind. "Jigsaw" is mostly set out in a barn, with lots of hay and a key scene in a grain silo, exchanging the traditionally urban settings of these movies for a more rural location. Cinematographer Ben Nott mostly keeps to a brightly lit and widescreen look, that thrusts bladed instruments and swinging body parts right into the camera. (Weirdly, the sequel was not released in 3D, despite this.) However, the scenes of cops and detectives following clues and trying to stop Jigsaw's twisted game are fairly flatly presented. The question of what is "Saw" without the stylized, in-your-face edginess of the early 2000s is answered by "Jigsaw" mostly looking like a network television show. The gruesome post-mortem examinations of mutilated bodies aren't that much more graphic than what you'd see on any "CSI" spin-off, showing that the culture had truly caught up with "Saw's" extremity by 2017. 

It is weird seeing Billy the Puppet in such brightly lit environments, without the jittery camera work. Otherwise, "Jigsaw" doesn't feel that different from the previous entries in the series. By the end of "Saw 3D," the series had become a continuity-heavy soap opera about the competing apprentices of John Kramer, the various detectives and victims of the twisted gamemaster. "Jigsaw" has a mostly new cast of characters, new cops and coroners on the killer's trail and new bickering captives of Jigsaw's masterplan. The characters are familiar, however, with Halloran as the dirty cop and Ryan as the belligerent asshole pushing through the game. A compelling protagonist never emerges, which makes the scenes devoted to moving the plot forward tedious. A moment when Logan talks about details of the case with his obsessive Jigsaw fangirl sister feel utterly route and tedious. The idea of an online fandom of Jigsaw devotees is an interesting idea but the sequel never makes any of its generic characters or investigation feel all that novel or fleshed-out. 

That reveals a depressing truth about "Saw" as a franchise. John Kramer and his network of disciples had basically emerged as the protagonists of the later sequels. The people navigating the elaborate murder devices were interchangeable, often unimportant victims to watch get brutalized. The gory traps are ostensibly the stars of these movies anyway, right? Probably out of a desire to shed the franchise's reputation as mindless torture-fests, "Jigsaw" reels back on the graphic violence. There's a fairly gnarly shot of a leg sliced off in a wire snare but most of the scenarios are more psychological. The focus is on the moral dilemmas the characters must make, forced to choose between spilling their own blood and watching someone else die. However, the people trapped in the barn range from vaguely defined to deeply unlikeable. As always, there are twisted moral justification for each game, all of them being responsible for some "sin." That makes it harder to root for anyone to survive. When that is combined with the less elaborate and gruesome devices, the result leans more towards tedium than thrills. The Spierigs seem to lack the sadistic eyes of previous "Saw" directors. Some of the scenarios here – a duo trapped in a slowly filling grain silo as bladed instruments fall from above – show the sick creativity we've cone to expect. However, someone being lowered into a spinning spiral of blades or tightening chains lack the visceral presentation of past films. "Jigsaw" doesn't want to be mindless gore and sadism but it doesn't offer us much else either, sure to leave the Fangoria crowd deeply underwhelmed. 

Of course, convoluted on-going storylines and elaborately gruesome violence are only the main things "Saw" has offered fans over the years. The series is also known, I guess, for its twist endings. Horror villains like Jason, Chucky, and Michael Myers have all returned from the grave multiple times. "Saw" is ostensibly more grounded than those series. Flashbacks and absurd planning ahead has kept Tobin Bell as John Kramer in these movies, despite the character technically being dead since part three. "Jigsaw" teases throughout the possibility that Kramer has somehow returned from the grave, his terminal cancer diagnosis somehow not being so permanent. The sequel clearly knows fans are expecting the character to return. When Bell appears on-screen again, as solemn and grim and compelling as ever, it would seem "Saw" has finally crossed that improbable bridge. Stolberg and Goldfinger's script, however, has one genuinely clever ace up its sleeve. Trying to decipher the moral code of the killer remains as nonsensical as ever. However, I will give the eighth installment points for catching me off-guard and finding a way to bring Jigsaw back that doesn't involve contrivances like resurrections from the grave, identical siblings, time travel, or undoing the importance of being near-death to Kramer's motivation. 

That clever last minute twist – which should not be thought about too hard in the context of previous movies, of course – at least takes "Jigsaw" out on a memorable note. The sequel should also be commended for building on the A.C.A.B. subtext of the previous entries. It seems wrong to root for the sadistic toymaker and his twisted games of death but he still seems to have a stronger sense of justice than the fucking cops. Six years both is and isn't a long time, in terms of cultural memory. "Jigsaw" attempts to acknowledge the stylish changes that had passed since 2010. At the same time, it keeps doing most of what the previous "Saw" movies had already done, resisting any claims to bring an actual reinvention of the series. Maybe that is why "Jigsaw" – while still easily making back its modest production budget at the box office – failed to reignite the public's appetite for carnage like this. Perhaps not enough time has passed after all for us to feel like we were missing this particular type of butchery yet... [6/10]