Grade: B-
Ever since the silent film era started adapting literature’s great swashbuckling novels, embarking on high-seas adventures with legendary pirates has continued to be peak cinematic escapism, be it grandiose battles on fully-manned ships or sweaty, stealthy pursuits for treasure through tropical islands. Recently, the successful but fallen-off Pirates of the Caribbean franchise has left the subgenre mostly quiet in its absence for a decade, and while the eager can revisit the cinema of the past with Errol Flynn’s escapades -- please watch Captain Blood and Sea Hawk -- or discover the historically adjacent action-drama series Black Sails, the thirst has grown for something new from the realm of weatherworn, morally-fluid men and women of the sea. In comes Amazon’s The Bluff, arriving to shore with the ambition that gritty skirmishes, character gravitas and a fistful of contemporary twists will lead it across a familiar map to excitement. There might not be a hidden gem at the end of this straight-to-stream pirate jaunt, but there’s more than enough sentiment and swagger behind the swordplay to revel in the escapade.
The Bluff transports us to the Caribbean in the mid-1800s, to a remote island in the Caymans harboring a small township living in seclusion. A Caribbean native, Ercell (Priyanka Chopra), has cultivated a peaceful life with her sister and handicapped son, awaiting the return of her ship captain husband from a significantly overlong trip. That is, until a cluster of boats carrying intimidating raiders rush up to shore, led by the gristly and graying Captain Connor (Karl Urban). The outfit’s objective becomes clear: an old shipmate of theirs has been hiding valuable cargo, and they’re here to collect by any means necessary. The pirates announce their arrival with violence, and at that point Ercell forces herself to flip a switch and transform into who she once was for the sake of protecting her family. In steps Bloody Mary, once a trained and violent swashbuckler who sailed with Captain Connor, armed with knowledge of combat, explosives, and traps that’ll complicate matters for the invaders.
Written by Joe Ballarini and director Frank E. Flowers with genuine historical texture in mind, the story has an unmistakable air of familiarity to it, fueled by the unretired professional killer movies of the modern era such as Kill Bill or John Wick with homages to modern and classic swashbuckling cinema of lore. When it’s shot on location in the Cayman Islands like this for atmosphere, that familiarity matters far less as the vintage moving parts of the classic pirate’s tale take shape around Chopra’s heroine, and it quickly gets the pulse going in The Bluff. Too often in these stories, women are either relegated to damsels in distress or curated into a passable, shielded member of a pirate’s crew, whereas Ercell’s backstory forms into a credible and bleak origin for her skills as a notorious buccaneer and a willingness to murder in protection of her family. From the jump, Chopra comes ready to be convincing as that dashing hero with a transformative past, and the film’s energy burns brighter once she reveals what she’s been hiding from her family.
What I’m still wrapping my head around with The Bluff is how the primary characters default to dramatic comfort zones for their roguish personas, and whether that’s distracting or the right kind of satisfying for a character-driven outing like this. Chopra channels her passionate, yet wise and mature baseline attitude into a grim, fiery vessel for Emcell without fussing over giving her unique ticks or tells, and for the story being told -- and what Bloody Mary has survived -- that’s justifiable. Karl Urban, on the other side of the coin, has a more complex issue going on: his gravelly British accent, narrow smoldering glances and general coat-slinging swagger work like a salacious twist on Butcher from the popular series The Boys. And y’know, seeing Butcher-Urban slide along the scale of morality while surrounded by only the “superpowers” of learned sword combat and steady-aimed firearms can be inherently entertaining, stock delivery or not. When you combine them with their characters’ long unseen history of piracy together, Urban and Chopra in these identifiable states generate the right energy of fire and fury, allowing charisma to sweep us into the flow of action.
Those expecting prolonged fencing battles with clanging blades and measured footwork will be disappointed with The Bluff, as it eschews that sort of pageantry for shorter, wider sabers and hidden daggers designed for quick work during battle when explosives and pistols don’t do the trick. Mixed with martial-arts maneuvers and some good old dirty brawling, the action begins with blood and grit and doesn’t let up the deeper it goes into the island, choreographed with abrupt violence in mind as it precariously walks the tightrope of realism with what Bloody Mary’s able to do and endure. Fights break out in tight spaces from complex angles, whether it’s arid Caribbean homes or dense jungles and dusty caverns, with the cinematography respecting the little details of their geography when the chaos becomes too much for the space. Bloody Mary’s allowed to kick ass, and I’m here for it, from acrobatic chokes to munitions explosions.
After a ravishing climax that pulls all its strengths together into, yet again, something foreseeable yet rousing for its conclusion, The Bluff reaches an interesting destination: it isn’t the kind of sweeping success that begs for big-screen attention with what it accomplishes, but it’s also executed far, far better than other streaming-only or direct-to-video pics, especially in how it stays focused on to-the-ground swashbuckling during an era of genre regrowth. In the absence of blockbuster scale and stakes, there’s the exhilaration of cheering on Bloody Mary’s maternal instincts as she reaches deeper in her bag of tricks to safeguard her family with the tools that she’s got, and every detonation or takedown or swing of the blade marks another taste of of the genre with purpose. That’s why The Bluff succeeds at being adequate and frequently enjoyable pirate escapism, likely not a journey you’ll revisit but one worth admiring for the gusto in how it revives the genre’s sights and sounds.
In Bugonia, the character played by Emma Stone insists to her conspiracy theorist captor, impeccably realized by Jesse Plemons, that she isn’t an alien, attributing her youthful appearance to anti-aging regiments that are very expensive. She may not be a literal alien in Yorgos Lanthimos’ dark kidnapping thriller, but when she’s a corporate bigwig on that level of importance and freedom, perhaps she might as well be. Those are the sociopolitical ideas tumbling around as the reality of a harrowing abduction plays out, shrewdly photographed with Emma Stone’s uniquely wide, vivid eyes as a centerpiece, her masterful performance launching the character from boilerplate business troubleshooting to darker verbal manipulation and then to fraught speeches that are, frankly, out of this world. A marvel of blunt-force thematic trauma and cloaked metaphors about humanity, population control, and self-destruction, Bugonia might not be the film that gets rewatched as often as the others on this list due to its grim, guttural nature, but I be damned if it doesn’t continue to buzz in the mind long and hard after this smartly-crafted remake unmasks its truths.
Science fiction has been warning us for a long time about the dangers of artificial intelligence gaining control of our day-to-day lives, yet still we seem to have been slow-walking to a meeting point between technologies -- independent-thinking synthetic intelligence and autonomous robot and drone technology -- that looks suspiciously like all the ingredients needed for the bad stuff to happen, just unassembled. Companion operates best knowing less of the specifics about what’s really going on as possible during a couple’s retreat at a lake house, but going in with the knowledge that it’s set in a near future where we’ve bridged at least some of that gap to “the bad stuff” won’t ruin anything. With Sophie Thatcher at the core as a disarming emotional force in the vessel of an awkward yet devoted girlfriend, writer/director Drew Hancock uses technology, robotics, and the transactional nature of human interactions to create fast, cerebral cat-and-mouse horror that can’t help from urging caution in many of the same way as other pieces of sci-fi have over the years, only on a more prescient and intimate level.
There’s a scene in Eddington where Joaquin Phoenix’s small-town sheriff character lumbers through a Democratic fundraiser with a very-Texan stride, goes straight for a sound machine to turn off loud music, then turns and walks away ... only for the exact same song to flip back on with him still there. This is executed with almost laugh-out-loud comedic timing and would effortlessly spark that reaction at other times, but there’s an entire Ari Aster amount of cinematic context that happens before it, where a fictional Texas town becomes the perfect microcosm for COVID-era politics: it’s just big enough for world events to have impact and opinions to matter, but not big enough that people aren’t compelled to ignore inconvenient protocols because they believe the problem won’t reach their city. From rigid distancing policies and conspiracy theories to social-media influence and money tied up in politics, Eddington endures a little of everything in its absorbing war between Democratic mayor Ted Garcia and his power-strapped contender for the office, Sheriff Cross, realizing a comedy of errors in calculated maneuvers that get a little too close to the border of realism for their own good.
I’ll admit: the first time I heard Guillermo Del Toro say that he’s 
Paul Thomas Anderson’s films usually have a lot going on in them, both in the layers and perspectives of the story and the ideas and themes he’d like for the audience to take away, and One Battle After Another is no exception. With a particularly emotive Leonardo DiCaprio leading the charge as explosives specialist revolutionary Ghetto Pat in love with a fellow fiery independent woman for the cause, the film covers two different eras in the history of resistance fighters: when they’re young and free of restraints, and a decade-and-a-half down the line when a daughter becomes involved. While a timely social tapestry gets woven about fighting for immigrants, government and military interference in gaining control of the message, and powerful men jockeying for further power as others suffer — sometimes, with the suffering being the point — One Battle After Another never takes its sight off the human stakes involved in the fabric of a father-daughter relationship and the obsession of an unhinged supremacist military officer to locate them. Sean Penn’s swoop-haired villain Lockjaw might be the most fascinating in a line of fascinating things here: sterile yet putrid, overconfident yet uncomfortable, vascular yet cripplingly weak.
All it takes is a few minutes with Michael B. Jordan’s Smoke and Stack twin characters for Sinners to sink in its teeth and cast its spells, showing how writer/director Ryan Coogler’s desire to take a stab at creating twins onscreen transforms into an absorbing period tale set in Prohibition-era South. This isn’t a comic book, but it does have certain mythical sensibilities that capture just as much invigorating entertainment value as one, offering tastes of backstory about how the criminal brothers lived a potent, profitable, passionate life leading up to this return to their hometown. As they drum up connections and resources to open a spot for music and booze, Sinners offers brisk, beautiful storytelling with a deep musical soul long before any advertised bloodsuckers enter the picture to try and crash the party. Once the vampires do show up, Coogler goes for the throat with action-tilted bloodshed backed by fierce symbolism tied to the cultural history of America, accomplishing so much more than similar split-in-half genre pics like From Dusk Till Dawn could even imagine.
Any messages delivered by director and DC film architect James Gunn involving Superman as a resident alien are quite clear in this quasi-reboot, and this is certainly a James Gunn movie, through and through. The humor both sticks landings and overstays its welcome, there’s a lot of cool secondary character involvement without fleshing them out as much as we’d like, and it isn’t afraid to go very, very big with existential threats and action set pieces. Ultimately, those aspects become excusable because of how this Superman’s designed to feel like we’re catching the flow of a narrative that’s already been going for a minute, like you’ve grabbed a shiny new copy of a comic off the rack featuring the rebooted universe. This is also a whole new experience watching Corenswet’s Big Blue Boy Scout in bold, grin-inducing acts of heroism: neither Cavill nor Reeve, he plants his flag somewhere between the two with his borderline eyeroll-worthy idealism, a tough trait to hit. This isn’t “Superman Begins”, by design, but it confidently announces that it’s cut from a different cloth than previous versions and embraces the brighter side of messaging about sympathy, goodwill, and humanity in the face of authoritative manipulation (Hoult is a fab Lex Luthor).
Thing is, superhero movie burnout is very real, and I reached that point several stages ago before Marvel and DC both brought their developed universes to a head with Avengers Infinity War/Endgame and Justice League. For those who have felt that cynical, curmudgeonly aggravation creep in, Thunderbolts is a breath of fresh air. Adjacent to The Suicide Squad for DC and led by Black Widow heir apparent Florence Pugh as an ex-assassin searching for solace and purpose in a hero’s world, a downtrodden squad of antiheroes embark on a search for political retribution after surviving a mission designed to eliminate them all, running into overwhelming obstacles and getting their hands dirty with the characters’ flaws and doubts about their worth the closer they get to the architect, CIA director De Fontaine. Then, it becomes funny, and then somber, and then it hits a rhythm lobbying back and forth between those tones … and wouldn’t you know it, it feels meaningful. Action does get outlandish and all-powerful at a certain point, which might ring a few alarms for those tired of the rigamarole, but it’s never without purpose or justification and Thunderbolts never stops being a thinking person’s hero film with a different slate of antagonists.
An immensely talented cast curated by Rian Johnson fills Wake Up Dead Man as the flock of an isolated New York church helmed by an austere priest, played by Josh Brolin in a way that immediately sparks thoughts of the barnacled pulpit speaker from Moby Dick and his stormy sermon. Yet, it’s the impassioned energy of Josh O’Connor as a newly-arrived assistant priest that grabs the attention in the front end of yet another of the director’s Agatha Christie-like murder mysteries. Here, we have a priest suspected of murdering another, and watching O’Connor wince and squirm in the presence of those distinctly devout characters makes for fascinating build-up to the killing, nonchalantly piling up themes about organized religion while Johnson maneuvers his puzzle pieces. Then, like clockwork, it happens: the doors swing open and in walks a less-flippant yet still playfully verbose Benoit Blanc, conducted by Daniel Craig as the self-professed “proud heretic” of the lot. Once he’s in the mix, Wake Up Dead Man takes shape as an intricate, intimate whodunit with very few bells-‘n-whistles getting in the way that might stretch the credibility of its grand conclusion, sliding it on the shelf near the front of Johnson’s murder-mystery oeuvre.
Something weird has happened again: similar to The Prestige vs. The Illusionist or Saving Private Ryan vs. The Thin Red Line, there’s a striking similarity between two of the finer genre films released this year, Zack Cregger’s Weapons and the Philippou Bros.’ Bring Her Back. Two sides of the same coin, they involve the powerful abilities of witchcraft to control the minds of children for selfish purposes, producing fascinating villains with compelling motives. Here’s where the differences come in: Bring Her Back approaches the idea entirely straight and with devastating emotional drama as its intent, whereas Weapons finds a way to mold similar plot designs and themes into pitch-black comedy and brazen, wide-eyed jump scares. Choosing between them is tough, especially with how effective the gorgeous craftsmanship and the haunting performance from Sally Hawkins are in Bring Her Back; however, Weapons has the benefit of tapping into child-disappearance horror and having fun with perspectives in the unspeakable situation, from watching a young cop commit a comedy of errors and a father awkwardly sleuth across town to the bizarre arrival of Amy Madigan’s now iconic Aunt Gladys. Both outstanding, but I know which one will come off the shelf first during spooky season.
Jurassic World: Dominion may have provided shaky ground for the franchise’s ending to stick its landing, but flaws and all, it wrapped up the messy strands from both the Spielberg and Trevorrow eras in a way so this absurdly modified version of Michael Crichton’s universe could move on. Unable to let the roaring money-making machine go extinct, the newest installment, Rebirth, at least seems like it might be able to rediscover cinematic life as a spinoff. With an enthusiastic Scarlett Johansson as the tip of the spear, a covert spec-ops mission picks up a robust support crew -- Sexiest Man Alive Jonathan Bailey; equally as sexy Mahershala Ali -- and washes them up on an adjacent island away from the original franchise’s main events to gather lucrative bio samples from lesser-seen dinosaurs. No genetic freaks, no overblown stakes, no lazy character baggage. Clean slate. Unfortunately, Rebirth squanders the opportunities afforded to it with new unneeded genetic freaks, excessive displays of visual effects, a family of survivors that could be chomped out of the movie without any impact on the plot ... and an unconvincing ScarJo as that kind of mercenary leader. On top of that, things just start off on the wrong foot by once again making dinosaurs seem mundane in the modern era instead of exciting, and it bypasses intriguing suspenseful possibilities in lieu of a been-there, done-that mission flow from dino to dino that smells like one big pile of obligation.
Granted, my gaming exposure was incredibly limited this year due to the demands of life and maintaining other extracurriculars, but I was able to experience the full drama of the Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered “shadow drop”. My love for Oblivion runs in lockstep with my love for sandbox games and RPGs, where exploring the vast, ethereal beauty of Cyrodiil’s secret-riddled landscape pairs with how the game encourages interactions with the characters and pushing the limits of what you can do as a wanderer through its townships. As I’ve discovered over the years, it’s a near-ideal blend of open-world and objective-driven design, more focused than Morrowind and less of a fantasy sim than Skyrim. Odd rumors of Oblivion being remastered have existed since plans and evidence of gameplay showed up within internal documents, but interest dramatically spiked when an insider claimed it was not only ready, but being prepped for a quietly-marketed surprise drop … and wouldn’t ya know it, all the online sleuthing and hyping proved to be true. Dropped the same day as a Bethesda showcase event, Oblivion Remastered is a thing of beauty, a mesmerizing blend of upgraded Unreal graphics and modernized game fluidity -- Fun archery! Sprinting! Leveling improvements! A hell of a character creator! -- with a careful focus on making it look, sound, and feel as it did twenty years prior.
