HYPNOTIC : Tuesday 16th May 2023.

I saw the M Rated 'HYPNOTIC' at my local independent movie theatre this week, and this American Sci-Fi action thriller is Co-Written, Co-Produced, Directed, Edited and scored by Robert Rodriguez. His previous film making credits include his 1992 debut with 'El Mariachi', then 'Desperado' in 1995, 'From Dusk till Dawn' in 1996, the 'Spy Kids' franchise which has so far spawned four films with a fifth reportedly in development for Netflix, 'Sin City' in 2005 and 'Sin City : A Dame to Kill For' in 2014, 'Planet Terror' in 2007, 'Machete' in 2010 and 'Alita : Battle Angel' in 2019. This film saw its 'work-in-progress' World Premier at SXSW in late March this year, was released Stateside last week too and cost in the region of US$65M to produce and has so far grossed just US$3.5M having garnered mixed reviews. It is reportedly the worst Box Office opening for any Rodriguez film and Ben Affleck led feature, and was partly blamed on the lack of marketing by the studio behind this production. 

The film opens up with Austin Police Detective Danny Rourke (Ben Affleck) recounting to his therapist (Nikki Dixon) the abduction of his young daughter Minnie (Lonie Nieves) which ultimately led to the break-up of his marriage. Afterwards, he is collected by his partner, Nicks (J.D. Pardo), who advises him they have received an anonymous tip that a safety deposit box at a bank is about to be robbed. 

At the stakeout, they observe a mysterious man give unheard instructions to a civilian woman, a bank teller, and two armed Police officers who seemingly without question follow his instructions as he enters the bank. Rourke beats him to the targeted safety deposit box, unlocks it and finds a solitary photograph of Minnie inside with the handwritten message 'Find Lev Dellrayne' on it. Rourke chases the man to a parking lot rooftop, where he witnesses him command two Police officers to shoot each other as he escapes, by seemingly jumping off a tall building much to Rourke's astonishment.

Rourke believes the heist has something to do with the disappearance of his daughter, and so he starts digging around. Forensics lead Rourke to the address of fortuneteller and hypnotist Diana Cruz (Alice Braga) who it turns out was the anonymous caller of the bank heist earlier in the day. After he describes the man from the heist, a client of Cruz's, under the control of the man from the bank, drives a motorcycle through Cruz's shop window before killing himself. Rourke takes Cruz into custody. She explains that the mysterious man from the bank is named 'Lev Dellrayne' (William Fichtner), and that both he and her are escaped 'Hypnotics' - powerful hypnotists trained by a secretive government 'Division' to control people's minds. Rourke is mysteriously immune to their control, more than likely caused by a block in his mind brought about by a traumatic or emotional experience in his life. Meanwhile Dellrayne, outside the station, commands Nicks to attack Rourke and Cruz, which he does with Cruz putting a bullet between his eyes to stop his onslaught.

Rourke and Cruz flee to Mexico now that they are on the TV news for the slaying of Nicks. There, they learn from a former Division contact Jeremiah (Jackie Earle Haley) that Dellrayne is looking for 'Domino', a powerful weapon developed by the Division, stolen, and hidden by Dellrayne when he escaped. 

Dellrayne then wiped his own memory leaving behind certain 'triggers' allowing him to gradually recall Domino's location and regain his own hypnotic power. Dellrayne eventually reveals himself to be Jeremiah in disguise and pursues Rourke and Cruz through a hypnotically constructed environment before Rourke taps into his own previously unknown hypnotic power and so giving them the chance to escape.

Cruz seeks out River (Dayo Okeniyi) a reclusive Division hacker, with Rourke who discovers Rourke's wife Vivian in a Division database. Later, Rourke investigates River's database himself, and discovers that Minnie is in fact Domino, the daughter of two of the most powerful hypnotics - Rourke and Cruz (who it turns out is Vivian). As 'Cruz' interrupts him, Rourke comes to the realisation that the room he is sat in and all of the events up to this time have been constructs. He wakes up in a large room populated by Division agents, all of whom he has seen or interacted with throughout the carefully constructed story, including Nicks, Dellrayne and even his therapist. 

Vivian and Dellrayne explain that Rourke and Vivian are both hypnotics, and their daughter Minnie was born and raised within the Division. He however, escaped with her to stop her from becoming their weapon. Hiding her and then wiping his memory, Rourke no longer remembers where she is, and the Division has been putting him through constructs of the search for her to make him remember, on twelve previous occasions. Rourke is plugged back into the construct for the thirteenth time now, where he repeats the session with his therapist and the stakeout at the bank heist. However, Rourke escapes using his own powers and flees as the Division realises that 'Find Lev Dellrayne' refers not to a person but a place - 'Deer Valley Lane' the location of a ranch where Rourke's foster parents have been hiding Minnie.

Rourke arrives at the ranch and is reunited with Minnie (Hala Finley), who has now aged by three years and has grown to have full control of her powers. The Division arrive en masse and surround the ranch but it is all revealed to be another construct this time of Minnie's creation. Minnie restores Vivian's memories that she was involved in Rourke and Minnie's escape, but wiped her memory so that when Minnie was powerful enough to defeat the entire Division at once, Vivian could unwittingly lead them to her. Minnie forces the Division agents to turn on each other so taking themselves out, including Dellrayne who turns his own gun on himself and plugs three bullets into his chest, after which she, her parents, and Rourke's foster parents embrace in their newfound freedom. In a mid-credits sequence, Dellrayne is shown to have survived, having constructed Rourke's foster-father Carl (Jeff Fahey) to look like him during the fight with Minnie. He is seen walking back to the helicopter from whence he came. 

'Hypnotic' is entertaining and watchable enough and at a brisk 92 minutes run time it never outstays its welcome. Here the maestro of B-grade movies Robert Rodriguez channels the likes of Christopher Nolan and Alfred Hitchcock dabbling in the worlds of Sci-Fi and thrillers with a good dose of action thrown in to keep viewers motivated enough to sit through this picture's preposterous premise which is slow to get off the ground but once the momentum builds it delivers a reasonably satisfying conclusion. Ben Affleck phones his performance in, as the grizzled square-jawed actor can see with his eyes closed that this barely above average thriller is hardly going to cause a stir in the pantheon of genre bending films of a similar ilk. 

'Hypnotic' merits three claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a possible five claps.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-

THE NEW MUTANTS : Tuesday 8th September 2020

I saw 'THE NEW MUTANTS' at my local independent movie theatre earlier this week and here we have this long awaited M Rated horror film in the Superhero genre which is based on the Marvel Comics of the same name, and is intended to be the thirteenth and stand-alone last instalment in the 'X-Men' franchise. Written and Directed by Josh Boone whose previous film making credits are 'Stuck in Love' his debut in 2012 and 'The Fault in Our Stars' in 2014, this film was originally slated for an April 2018 release date. That date was then pushed back to late February 2019, then again to early August 2019, and then once more to April 2020. It was then pulled due to COVID-19 and finally saw the light of day with its release Stateside two weeks ago now, and in Australia last week. Costing somewhere in the region of US$70M to make, the film has so far taken US$21M and has gained largely mixed or average Reviews. Initially intended to be the first instalment in a trilogy, since Disney purchased Fox in March 2019 and the rights of the film reverted back to Marvel Studio's, any talk of subsequent films in this series appear to have been largely quashed.

Here the film opens up with Danielle 'Dani' Moonstar (Blu Hunt), a Native American Cheyenne teenager, seen running from the destruction of her reservation during a tornado. Dani's father William (Adam Beach) hides her in the burnt out trunk of a tree before an unseen entity kills him, leaving her the only survivor. After being chased by the entity and knocked unconscious during an unusual snowstorm, Dani comes around shackled to a bed in a hospital run by Dr. Cecilia Reyes (Alice Braga).

Reyes reassures Dani that she is now safe, and informs her that she is a mutant, although her abilities have not yet manifested themselves. She further advises her to remain in the hospital until she learns what her abilities are and is able to control them. She is released from her shackles and told that she has the freedom of the facility and to mix with the others. The hospital is twenty miles from the nearest town.

The next day Dani is introduced to four other young teenagers - Rahne Sinclair (Maisie Williams), Illyana Rasputin (Anya Taylor-Joy), Sam Guthrie (Charlie Heaton) and Roberto da Costa (Henry Zaga). Reyes has brought each of them to the hospital after they have all suffered tragedy for psychiatric monitoring. Rahne is a Scot who escaped her religiously strict village after being branded as a witch, Illyana, a  Russian, was haunted by her past in child slavery, which manifests itself as otherworldly beings called the 'Smile Men', Sam, an American, brought down a whole mine on his father and coworkers, and Roberto, a Brazilian from a monied family, burned his girlfriend to death. All of them are displaying mutant abilities, but not all of them are yet able to control them. Rahne is a lycanthrope and able to turn herself into a wolf, Illyana has inter-dimensional sorcery powers, Sam can fly at jet speed from a standing start and Roberto can manipulate solar energy. Reyes is also a powerful mutant who keeps her patients from leaving the facility by engulfing it with unbreakable force fields. 

Subsequently the five of them start to believe that they are being trained to join the 'X-Men' which would account for the strict rules they must live under and the constant remote surveillance. Reyes also constantly reminds them that they are considered a danger to themselves, each other and the public at large and should not leave until they have learned to fully harness their abilities. Dani and Rahne forge a strong bond almost straight away, eventually forming a romantic relationship, while Illyana continues to taunt Dani as the outsider. When Dani fights back, she discovers that Illyana's only friend is a hand puppet of a purple dragon who she calls Lockheed, and who never leaves her side. Soon, the group all begin to have horrifying visions of their past tragedies, one of which results in Rahne getting branded in the neck with a 'W' sign - denoting 'Witch'. Illyana concludes that the visions result from Dani's powers finally manifesting itself and that she is able to create illusions based on a person's psyche. Reyes consults her employers, the Essex Corporation, who instruct her to collect Dani's DNA and to euthanise her.

Reyes takes Dani away under the guise of conducting more tests but Rahne suspects that something is wrong. While Dani goes under and is being gassed, Illyana and Sam are attacked by the Smile Men while Roberto tries to break through the heavily fortified and secure house, but is unsuccessful in his attempts. Reyes in interrupted by the commotion coming from elsewhere in the house and Rahne rescues Dani, who then uses her powers to learn of Reyes's true intentions before Rahne arrives in half-wolf form and mauls Reyes face with her claws, forcing her to flee.

The five regroup and deduce that to escape, they have to kill Reyes to deprive the force fields of their power source. They find her and Reyes traps them inside individual force field domes, revealing that she was training them to be killers for the Essex Corporation. Before she can crush Dani to death, the entity, the Demon Bear, who had been following Dani and was the real reason her reservation was destroyed, arrives and mauls Reyes throwing her body around like a rag doll, killing her.

Illyana summons her powers to jump between dimensions and is joined by a fire breathing real life version of Lockheed to take on Demon Bear. Sam and Roberto join the fight too, conquering their mutant fears in the process. Rahne tries to connect through to an unconscious Dani until she is forced to fight the Demon Bear alone as a wolf. Still unconscious, Dani is visited by her father's spirit, who encourages her to wake up and face her fear. Dani awakens, draws the attention of the Demon Bear and confronts it calming it into submission until it dissipates. As day breaks, the group emerge from the wreckage of the hospital and the main house. Sam hurls a lump of coal that was a keepsake from his coal mining father into the air from which they learn that the force field is down. They head out together to face an uncertain world.

For the thirteenth and allegedly final film in the 'X-Men' franchise, this instalment comes across as being truly unlucky for some! Whilst looking to combine the mythology of the 'X-Men' saga with the horror genre and coming-of-age nuances, this film barely scratches the surface of our protagonists back stories; makes a passing comment about the organisation behind all the testing, analysis and power it wields; and fails to dig deep into the troubled minds of the five teenagers in question. That said, the quintet here do appear to share a certain on screen chemistry together, albeit the standout performances are from Williams, Taylor-Joy and Heaton who have all honed their acting chops a lot more than Hunt and Zaga have, and it shows, in spades. As a horror film it fails to scare, as a Superhero offering is fails to launch and as a coming of age story featuring two teenage girls getting it on together this adds little to the plot. Perhaps if this had been released two and a half years ago as originally intended we might have viewed it differently; perhaps if the planned reshoots had been allowed to go go ahead; perhaps if the editing process had not been so disjointed; perhaps if the various studios involved along its route from production to release had shown a little more restraint and some more understanding of Boone's vision; and perhaps if this film hadn't been released in the worst year in cinema history then maybe, just maybe, there may be more positivity surrounding this film.

'The New Mutants' merits two claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a potential five claps.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-