High-Rise
(UK/Belgium, 119 min.)
Dir. Ben Wheatley, Writ. Amy Jump
Starring: Tom Hiddleston, Sienna Miller, Elisabeth Moss, Jeremy
Irons
Ben Wheatley jumps from the balcony and does a belly flop with High-Rise. This adaptation of the novel by JG Ballard is utterly incomprehensible, even if one approaches it with the yellow light of caution that goes with the author’s work. (Ditto the filmmaker.) The film puts Tom Hiddleston in Blindness territory as the residents of his tall new condominium run amok. The script by Amy Jump takes too many leaps and thus leaves far too many logical gaps in the process, though, so one can never really discern what’s going on as the masses within the high rise create chaos and a new social order tiered from the basement to the penthouse. Some nifty visuals and production design add to the dystopian atmosphere, but even for Wheatley, this bacchanal of madness is too eccentric for its own good.
High-Rise is now playing in theatres and is available on iTunes.
The Nice Guys
(USA, 116 min.)
Dir. Shane Black, Writ. Shane Black, Anthony Bagarozzi
Starring: Russell Crowe, Ryan Gosling, Kim Basinger,
Angourie Rice, Margaret Qualley, Matt Bomer
Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling make a fun screen team in The Nice Guys. The pair stars in this
anti-buddy comedy that plays like Starsky
and Hutch meets Inherent Vice as
their competing private eyes search for a lost girl in LA’s skin scene. The
film moves slowly, but the stars keep up a better pace by playing off one
another with Crowe taking the role of the tough enforcer and Gosling having a
lark as the more inept investigator between the two. Gosling’s especially fun with
the physical comedy of the part and his slapstick charm frequently holds The Nice Guys together as it straddles
broad strokes of humour with a dark, noir-ish crime caper. The latter act of
the film offers some wild action sequences and piles on a few too many
characters and threads, but it’s escapism with which to beat the summer heat.
Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising
(USA, 92 min.)
Dir. Nicholas Stoller; Writ. Andrew J. Cohen, Brendan O’Brien,
Nicholas Stoller, Evan Goldberg, Seth Rogen
Starring: Seth Rogen, Rose Byrne, Zac Efron, Chloë Grace
Moretz
Neighbors with
more of the same and that’s just as much as plus as it is a negative. Sorority Rising, like the first Neighbors, is pretty hit and miss with
its mixed bag of raunchy humour and generational jokes. This time, though,
Chloë Grace Moretz joins the party as the ringleader of a sorority house that wreaks
havoc on Mac (Seth Rogen) and Kelly (Rose Byrne) just as they’re about to close
on a sale of their house and depart the bad memories of living near a frat. The
boys aren’t nearly as bad as the girls gone wild on sorority row are, though,
and Neighbors kicks things up a notch
with some zanier humour and gags to outdo the first flick. The film often works
with its critique of feminism and the girls’ misperception that empowerment is
synonymous with taking down others, but it diffuses the commentary with some
gags that fall flat. Moretz, similarly, doesn’t have the comedic chops to match
the original Neighbors tag team of
Rogen, Byrne, and Efron, but the core players of the film are outrageously
funny enough to offset the newbies.
