In a maddening twist, nearly 1/4th of 2024 has already passed. I can barely remember to date things with the correct year, let alone comprehend that it’s basically April. But it is, and I have the ticket stubs to show for it. In the last three months, I’ve seen a lot of movies. Here are some fun-sized reviews of moves that didn’t get long solo write-ups, from my last three months of crime moviegoing.
The Beekeeper
The Beekeeper is about a lot of things, but is mostly about how, if you try to scam the elderly, you’re deserve a violent punishment. Movies shouldn’t be judged on their morals or the perceived morality of their characters, but I’m just going to say that I’m glad someone out there is making a movie with this message. Anyway, Jason Statham plays a beekeeper who takes his job very seriously. He loves beekeeping. It’s mostly what he talks about, and even when he talks about other things, it’s via beekeeping-themed metaphors. But then some phone scammers target his friend Phylicia Rashad and he goes on a revenge-fueled rampage. Turns out, he’s not just a beekeeper, he’s also a “beekeeper,” the name of a top-secret special-ops job. And he uses his super spy kills to start dismantling the scam syndicate for good. Is it an inane film? Yes. Does a character say “to bee or not to bee?” Yes. Should you see it? Yes. Everyone should see it, especially those of you entertaining the idea of conning old people out of money.
Argylle
Look, I sat through King Kong the musical on Broadway. “Disasters” at the level of “finished productions” don’t scare me out of an audience. But I’m going to guess that you already know Argylle isn’t great, since it was panned pretty long and hard last month, when it came out. While I wasn’t impressed by Argylle either, I won’t dismantle it here, partially because I don’t know if I’d have anything new to add to the pile and partially because it feels like a waste of energy. The best piece of criticism I’ve read about the film was from Bilge Ebiri, the critic at Vulture, who remarked on Twitter that Matthew Vaughn (who wrote and directed Argylle as well as the Kingsman movies) isn’t a bad action director but is a bad storyteller, unlike his buddy Guy Ritchie who is a good storyteller but not a good action director. I agree with this! Some of the action scenes in Argylle are well-done and enjoyable. And, narratively, the beginning of Argylle is enjoyable. It goes off the rails again and again (even when it seems that there are no more rails to go off from, more rails appear seemingly for this purpose) but there are glimmers of creativity and organization and excitement throughout. You know the one thing I kind of loved about it? The casting of Sam Rockwell, an actor of eminent watchability and also a dancer of extreme natural talent. If Sam is in a movie, I’ll pay attention, but if Sam is allowed to dance in a movie (which he is, in Argylle), then I’ll be on the edge of my seat. But it’s the truth that such scenes were the only times in Argylle‘s 139-minute runtime that I was engaged enough in what was going on to even move my body, let alone sit up.
Late Night with the Devil
Late Night with the Devil is a fresh, bracing horror film from writer-directors Cameron and Colin Cairnes and producer-star David Dastmalchian. It has a crystalline premise. Get a load of this: a late night TV show host, desperate for better ratings, plans a broadcast that will catch audiences’ attentions. His program, which airs on Halloween night in 1977, includes appearances from psychics, paranormal debunkers, and a psychologist who claims to have been able to communicate with a demon inhabiting a possessed child. Oh, and… the possessed child, herself. She’s there too. So, of course, when the show commences, things go horribly wrong. The film unfolds crisply, playing with a cinéma vérité style, as if we’re watching a behind-the-scenes broadcast about the apparently-famed broadcast, which includes material never before seen. I love films that handle exposition creatively, and this one certainly does, though its sense of overarching structure does fade a bit as the film progresses (sometimes, later on, I wasn’t positive if we were watching the broadcast, the broadcast of the broadcast, or something else). Perhaps this is related, but at times (in the film’s revelatory third act, for example) it’s almost too economical; I would not have called the film heavyhanded if it provided a few more conclusive answers. Just a couple! I mean, the devil’s in the details! But these are quibbles. Overall, it’s a smartly-paced, original, and riveting horror movie. If you like scary movies of any kind, or if you like the very specific category of “movies about broadcast television,” this one’s for you.
Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire
It’s kind of insane to me that Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire begins with a quote from the Robert Frost poem “Fire and Ice.” That should tell you all you need to know about this Ghostbusters installment (or the one that came before it, 2021’s Ghostbuster’s Afterlife): it’s a movie that doesn’t make sense as a vessel for any depth and yet tries very hard to dig deep. Many franchises have begun to The Force Awakens themselves (yes, that’s a verb). And following the deaths of both Harold Ramis and Ivan Reitman, it makes sense that a tribute reboot would rise. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed both new, heapingly-sentimental Ghostbusters movies, but let me warn you that their side effects may include feelings of confusion and shock, and lots of time spent recalling that the original two Ghostbusters movies were goofy, bawdy, and slapsticky by design. Anyway, the good thing about Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire is that it brings back the New Yorky stuff that feels so integral to the franchise that Afterlife eschewed (the old fire house, traffic hoopla, arguments down at City Hall). In this movie, an ancient god of ice and maybe death escapes his prison and tries to build an army of the dead. But it’s also about the importance of F-A-M-I-L-Y, a theme that feels a little too simple and out-of-place in a film with monsters way too scary to show to kids.* Speaking of monsters, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire also reminds us of one of the foundational tenets of creature design: the longer the fingers, the bigger the horns, the scarier the thing. “Tall, dark, and horny, 12 o’ clock” Bill Murray’s Peter Venkman laconically calls out when he first sees the icy, goat-like monster-god. That line might be the only real vestige of the original franchise’s cock-and-bull sense of self.
*Who is the target audience for these two reboots? I’m dying to know.
