Jonny Numb

Alien: Romulus (2024)

Even the most steadfast adherents of the Alien series according to Sir Ridley Scott probably felt at a sense of fatigue toward his attempts at reinvigorating the franchise: Prometheus and Alien: Covenant are the type of fascinating-to-frustrating-to-fascinating-again failures that dissatisfy not because their premises are unsound, but because their stories are being told by someone looking to recapture lightning in a bottle. As a result, Scott’s ruminations on mortality, empire, and “playing God” became muddled personal metaphors for his experiences within an ever-evolving Hollywood system (not to mention his vaunted position as a filmmaker who’s continued to command big budgets in spite of his box-office failures). Alien: Romulus posits that the best course correction is to clear the slate and start fresh…to an extent. While I don’t think co-writer/director Fede Alvarez has really proven himself as a consistent genre filmmaker, he is a hungry one…and his hunger to make a good Alien film is evident here. Another freshening of the franchise comes in a plot centered around a group of doomed youths stuck on a Dark Planet where the only option is to work till you croak in a coal mine. Fed up with their bleak, Dickensian existence, these Oliver Twists commandeer a vessel in hopes of traveling several light-years for a (literally) sunnier existence. Alvarez and frequent collaborator Rodo Sayagues use the Alien/Jaws method of building mood and atmosphere before bringing out the monsters in earnest, and the result is one effective setpiece after another that also keeps us invested in the fates of our protagonists, no matter their flaws. My biggest complaint is the insistence on regurgitating specific lines (and likenesses) from the previous entries as a bit of winking fan service.

3.5 out of 5 stars

Borderlands (2024)

Eli Roth’s Borderlands is firmly, adamantly, and unabashedly a three-star movie. Neither spectacular nor terrible, three-star movies are easy go-tos when I can’t decide what to watch, because they typically deliver a sort of fun that doesn’t demand – or even politely ask for – my full attention. In other words: three-star movies exist to meet base expectations. And for something that was damned with bad reviews and backlash from fans of the videogame (which I’ve never played), to the point where its initial 0% Rotten Tomatoes score became the hottest story among film- and gaming-geeks…Borderlands ain’t bad. Granted, the plot and characters feel like composites from every post-apocalyptic/futuristic film ever made, but that doesn’t mean said characters don’t have their endearing, quirky, and likable qualities. As someone fond of cinematic misfits and their misadventures, this motley crew finds tremendous strength in Cate Blanchett (if this is her slumming after getting an Oscar nod, I say: let her slum all she wants) as a hard-bitten (by PG-13 standards) bounty hunter and Jamie Lee Curtis as a tech-minded savant who helps guide the gang through the rusted-out technological wasteland, populated by bloodthirsty (again, PG-13 bloodthirsty) psychopaths, all-powerful corporate CEOs playing God, and a message of “hey, at the end of the day, we’re all in this together, so let’s make the best of it, huh?” While Kevin Hart spends the entire film looking lost, I won’t object to his relatively subdued turn as Blanchett deservedly takes center stage. Borderlands may be familiar, but it’s still fun. And it may not be The Suicide Squad, but at least it’s not Suicide Squad.

3 out of 5 stars

Strange Darling (2024)

JT Mollner’s film is all about calibration – of suspense; of performance; of expectation. I’ll admit I was a bit skeptical from the jump, wherein Strange Darling announces its cast in huge letters, refers to its leads as “The Lady” (Willa Fitzgerald) and “The Demon” (Kyle Gallner), and unambiguously calls itself “A Thriller in Six Chapters.” Okay then. I’m generally not a fan of late-period Tarantino, and all of this caused the impending dread of a smug, overly self-satisfied meta-narrative to creep in. Yet almost immediately, Mollner defies conventional narrative structure to present a fractured, schizophrenic ride that’s really an absorbing character study of the aforementioned Lady and Demon. The filmmaker is as adept at creating well-lit moments of laid-back character interaction as he is sequences of suspense and barnstorming violence. There are even pockets of absurd humor sprinkled throughout, striking with all the decisiveness of a scorpion’s stinger. While highly stylized in its execution and calculated in its storytelling, the meticulously controlled gestures and body language of Fitzgerald and Gallner elevate the experience from a low-impact gimmick to an altogether different plane of cinematic pain-and-pleasure.

4 out of 5 stars