DON'T WORRY DARLING : Tuesday 18th October 2022

I saw the M Rated 'DON'T WORRY DARLING' at my local multiplex this week, and this American psychological thriller film is Directed, Co-Produced and starring Olivia Wilde in only her second Directorial outing following the highly acclaimed 'Booksmart' in 2019. This film saw its World Premiere screening at the Venice International Film Festival in early September, was released in the US in late September and here in Australia on 6th October having generated mixed Reviews from Critics and costing US$35M to produce and so far returning US$79M in Box Office receipts.  

Set in the sun drenched company town of Victory, California, believed to be sometime in the 1950's Alice and Jack Chambers (Florence Pugh and Harry Styles respectively) seem to lead a near perfect life. Everyday the men leave their neat homes, smartly suited and booted, and reverse their cars out of their driveways and make the journey in convoy across the desert to Victory Headquarters, leaving their ever dutiful wives to clean the house, prepare dinner, relax by the pool with a cocktail with the other wives and ensure they are waiting at the front door with their husbands favourite cocktail in hand when he comes home from a hard day at the office. 

All of the town's womenfolk, including Alice's good friends Bunny (Olivia Wilde), Margaret (KiKi Layne) and Peg (Kate Berlant) are discouraged from asking questions about their husbands' work and told not to venture out to the Headquarters. Other than the fact that the husbands are permitted to state that they are collectively working on 'the development of progressive materials' this is just about all the wives are allowed to know about their dear husband's tireless work. Margaret has subsequently become an outcast after taking her young son out into the desert, resulting in her son's apparent death, although she claims that Victory took him from her as punishment for venturing out into the desert. While attending a party hosted by Frank (Chris Pine), Victory's enigmatic founder and leader, and his wife Shelley (Gemma Chan), Alice sees Margaret's husband trying to administer her medication.

One morning while taking the bus across town, Alice observes a light aircraft crash out in the desert. She rushes to help out across the desert and eventually comes to the Headquarters, a small building perched high up on a rocky outcrop covered in mirror-like windows. After touching one, she experiences surreal hallucinations and blacks out. She wakes up back home later that night with no idea how she got there. Jack is in the kitchen doing his best to prepare dinner for them both. In the following days, she experiences increasingly strange occurrences. She receives a phone call from Margaret, who claims to have seen the same thing Alice did, and rushing over to her house she sees Margaret stood on the roof who then proceeds to slit her own throat and falls backwards from the roof onto the grass below. Before she can reach Margaret, Alice is dragged away by two men in red jumpsuits, while two others quickly bundle up Margaret's body. 

Later that evening Jack counters Alice's claims and says Margaret simply fell while cleaning the windows and is recovering. This story is further verified by town physician and co-founder of the Victory Project Dr. Collins (Timothy Simons), who attempts to give Alice prescription drugs, but Jack intervenes saying that she doesn't need them. Alice becomes increasingly paranoid, anxious and confused, and during a special Victory event where Frank gives Jack a special promotion, Alice breaks down in the ladies rest room and is comforted by Bunny. Alice attempts to explain everything to her, but Bunny reacts angrily, accusing Alice of being selfish.

Some time later, Alice and Jack invite their immediate neighbours (except Bunny and her husband Dean) to dinner, with Frank and Shelley as special guests, and newbies in town Violet and Bill Johnson (Sydney Chandler and Douglas Smith respectively). Frank speaks privately with Alice in the kitchen as she is putting the finishing touches to dinner, implying that she is correct in her suspicions. Encouraged by his near confession, she attempts to expose him over dinner, but instead, Frank manipulates her accusations, making her look delusional to the other guests. After the guests have all left abruptly and before the meal had even started Alice begs Jack to take them both away from Victory and to do so tonight, straight away. Jack initially agrees, but when Alice gets in the car, he allows for her be taken away by Frank's men in red jumpsuits. Dr. Collins oversees Alice's electroshock therapy. During the procedure, she sees visions of herself in another life, as a present-day overworked and stressed out surgeon named Alice Warren who lives with the unemployed Jack and struggles to make ends meet. Jack spends his time listening to the voice of Frank selling his project over a website called 'Organised Chaos'. 

After her bout of therapy Alice returns to Victory and is welcomed home by Jack, but she continues to experience hallucinations and flash-backs. She later remembers the whole truth, that Victory is a simulated world created by Frank, and that Jack forced her into the simulation in the hope that they can lead an idyllic life together. When Jack realises she knows the truth, he claims he did this for her as she was miserable in her real life, but Alice is angered that Jack took away her autonomy and the life she loved. Jack gets down on his knees and hugs Alice, begging her to forgive him, then attempts to squeeze the life out of her forcing Alice to smash a heavy glass Whisky tumbler down on his head, killing him outright. 

Frank is called with news of Jack's death and sends his men in red jumpsuits to apprehend Alice. Bunny finds Alice and explains that she has always known Victory was a simulated world, but chooses to stay so she can be with her two young children, who died in reality. She tells Alice to escape in Jack's car and go to the Headquarters, which is an exit portal from the simulation. The other wives come to realise the truth as their husbands begin to panic, and join in the car chase. Alice drives Jack's car out across the desert towards the Headquarters, chased by Dr. Collins and Frank's men, who crash into each other sending their three cars exploding in a ball of flame. 

At their house, Shelley, wanting to regain her own control of the Victory Project, stabs Frank to death with a kitchen knife in the chest and then twists it for good measure. Alice makes it to Headquarters, where she has a vision of Jack asking her to stay. Alice ignores the vision and rushes to the window just before Frank's men reach her, and wakes up in the present day real world.

For me 'Don't Worry Darling' is all style over substance. The impeccable set design to the cinematography are top rate, and the performances of Florence Pugh and Chris Pine in particular more than carry the film, supported by an average performance from Harry Styles but one in which he shows he's got the acting chops to go the distance. After a promising first third, the films meanders and gets all too repetitive in the middle section before limping home to an underwhelming ending that felt rushed, half baked and left me scratching my head with all those unanswered questions. The film is a mash up of 'The Truman Show', 'Pleasantville' and 'The Stepford Wives' and whilst Olivia Wilde's intentions may have been admirable she has hardly reinvented the genre here, and instead has merely dusted it off, polished it up and given it a dose of 2022 glitz.

'Don't Worry Darling' merits three claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a potential five claps.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-

ETERNALS : Wednesday 3rd November 2021.

I saw 'ETERNALS' earlier this week at an advanced screening at my local multiplex, and this M Rated much hyped, eagerly anticipated and long awaited epic superhero film is based on the Marvel Comics characters of the same name. This is the 26th film in the MCU and the third film in the MCU's Phase Four. Directed and Co-Written by Chloe Zhao whose prior film credits are 2015's 'Songs My Brother Taught Me' her debut, then 'The Rider' in 2017 and the critically acclaimed 'Nomadland' in 2020. Originally set for release on 6th November 2020, it was then moved back to 12th February 2021 and then to this week in the US, UK, Australia and other international territories due to the COVID-19 pandemic, following its World Premier in LA on 18th October. The film cost US$200M to produce and has so far generated mixed or average Reviews, and at the time of writing the film has grossed US$30M. 

The core Eternals team who landed on our little blue planet about seven thousand years ago, consists of ten characters, each with their own set of very particular skills and super powers. There is Sersi (Gemma Chan), who can transform objects into different elements, such as rock into sand, metal into water, wood into stone and so on; Ikaris (Richard Madden), has the ability to fly and fire cosmic laser beams from his eyes; Kingo (Kumail Nanjiani), who can project energy blasts from his hands; Sprite (Lia McHugh), a twelve year old girl who can summon illusions at will ; Phastos (Brian Tyree Henry), an inventor extraordinaire; Makkari (Lauren Ridloff), who is deaf but has superhuman speed; Druig (Barry Keoghan), with the ability to control many multiple minds at once; Gilgamesh (Don Lee) with super strength, and Thena (Angelina Jolie), the Goddess of war who can summon weapons of cosmic light; and leading the pack is Ajak (Salma Hayek), the 'Prime Eternal' who has the ability to heal herself and others and is able to communicate with the Celestial Arishem the Judge (voiced by David Kaye) as a surrogate mother and protector of the Eternals. 

And so the Eternals are an immortal alien race created millennia ago by the Celestials (their mythology is that they are members of the first lifeforms created in and by the original universe, and have contributed to the creation of the Multiverse, including the evolution of life therein) and who were sent to Earth to protect humanity from the Deviants (an offshoot of the evolutionary process that created sentient life on Earth instigated by the alien Celestials). In 5000 BC, the Eternals arrived on Earth from their home planet Olympia sent by the Celestial Arishem, where they have to fight the invasive Deviants and ultimately destroy them all. Over the ensuing millennia, they have protected humanity from the dangers posed by these mutant creatures, but were not permitted to stand in the way of the development of mankind. The last of the Deviants were seemingly killed off some five hundred years ago, at which point the group became divided, as views differed about their responsibility towards the world's growing population. They subsequently spent the next few centuries largely separated from each other, waiting for Arishem to send them back to Olympia.

Fast forward to present day London and Sersi and Sprite are living together. After Sersi was left by her partner Ikaris more than five hundred years previously, she now has a relationship with Dane Whitman (Kit Harington) who works at London's Natural History Museum. When the three are attacked one evening by the Deviant leader Kro, Ikaris appears and chases the creature away after observing that this Deviant was able to self heal. Sersi, Sprite and Ikaris decide to reunite all Eternals to prepare for the renewed danger. They round up the rest of the group, all except for Ajak who was seemingly killed by a Deviant. 

As the new leader of the group, Ajak gave Sersi the ability to communicate with Arishem. In a conversation with the Celestial, Arishem tells her that the overriding mission of the Eternals was not to fight the Deviants, but to prepare Earth for 'The Emergence'. Arishem further explains that for millions of years, the Celestials have been planting their seeds in populated planets so that a new Celestial can be born from them. Since the energy of innumerable individuals is required for this, the Celestials sent the Deviants, so that the respective apex predators of the planet could be eradicated therefore paving the way for the ongoing development of life. However, the Deviants evolved and became apex predators themselves, explaining why the Eternals were sent to thwart them. Arishem concludes that Earth has now reached the necessary population density so that The Emergence - the birth of the Celestial Tiamut and the consequent destruction of Earth - can occur. This fact was known by Ajak since the Eternals arrived, but she was sworn to secrecy, telling Ikaris a few centuries ago but only revealing in flashback seven days before The Emergence was due to begin. Arisham also reveals that there was no home planet, Olympia, from which the Eternals originally hailed, and that they are destined to die with The Emergence. 

The Eternals came to love and respect humanity, despite all their flaws, over the centuries gone by, and so they decide not to obey the will of Arishem and instead want to prevent The Emergence. Through the 'Uni-Mind' created by Phastos - a connection between all Eternals that brings their collective powers together in a single force, Druig is then meant to harness the necessary power to bring Tiamut to sleep by means of his mind control abilities. However, not all Eternals are satisfied with the plan and Kingo leaves the group because he does not want to face Arishem and Ikaris reveals himself as an opponent. It was he who had been informed of The Emergence by Ajak and who finally sacrificed the leader to the Deviants when she too spoke out in opposition to the destruction of the Earth.

Makkari sprints around the world at warp speed to locate the place of The Emergence at the foot of an active volcano. There, a fight between Ikaris and the Eternals breaks out. The Deviant Kro, who wants to take out his revenge on the Eternals and who had previously killed Gilgamesh, is also there. Together, the group are able to bring Ikaris under control, while Thena defeats Kro at the same time by slicing and dicing him up with the aid of a pair of swords of cosmic light. 

Phastos activates the Uni-Mind, which Ikaris also joins after he has rethought his life on Earth and his relationship with Sersi. Since Druig is too weak from the previous fight to face Tiamut, Sersi, who is able to manipulate and transform substances, takes on the job and kills Tiamut by transforming the molten lava flow into ice and then hardened rock, so solidifying the emerging Tiamut. Wracked by guilt, Ikaris flies off taking one last look at planet Earth before flying directly into the sun. Sersi grants Sprite human life so that she can grow into an adult and experience all the things that adults do, albeit knowing that she will some day die too; Phastos remains with his partner and husband Ben (Haaz Sleiman) and their adoptive son Jack (Esai Daniel Cross), Kingo returns to his life as a famous Bollywood Actor; and Sersi returns to London to be with Dane Whitman. Thena, Druig and Makkari fly into space aboard their spaceship to find other Eternals. 

One day when Sersi and Dane are out walking and talking about her recent exploits in saving the world on Hampstead Heath with the City of London in the background, Arisham arrives on the horizon and summons Sersi and the other still earthbound Eternals telling them that with their killing of Tiamut he is still yet to judge whether Earth's civilisation will live or die. Keep watching for a mid-credits and a post-credits sequence in which Thena, Druig and Makkari get an unexpected couple of visitors on board their spaceship, and Dane Whitman opens up an old chest inherited from his forebearers.  

In crafting 'Eternals' Director and Co-Screenwriter Chloe Zhao has thrown out the MCU how-to rule book and created a film that takes the near fifteen year old epic franchise in a new and fresh direction. This film has emotion, sex, homosexuality and a rag tag bunch of various nationalities, cultures and beliefs all wrapped up into one neat little package that is not short on the action set pieces, or the humour delivered for the most part by Kingo and Gilgamesh. That said, its hard to get truly invested in ten characters when there is so little time given to their respective back stories which span millennia; the film labours at the mid-section and at a running time of 157 minutes it is, for me at least, twenty minutes overcooked. There will be those that love this film, and those that hate it, and as for this Reviewer, well I sit somewhere in the middle. But credit has to go to Chloe Zhao for steeping foot outside of the tried and tested MCU formula and delivering us something different, which despite its flaws, paves the way for a perhaps invigorated Phase Four - only time will tell where these characters take us. 

'Eternals' warrants three claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a possible five claps. 

-Steve, from Odeon Online-

CAPTAIN MARVEL : Tuesday 12th March 2019.

Here we have the twenty-first film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, 'CAPTAIN MARVEL', and the first film in the MCU to feature a female led Superhero. This much hyped eagerly anticipated film which I saw earlier this week, is said to be the second most keenly awaited blockbuster of 2019 behind 'Avengers : End Game' with advance ticket sales placing it in third place of any MCU film to date behind 'Avengers : Infinity War' and 'Black Panther'. Directed by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck for US$152M, development of the film began in 2013 and was officially announced in late 2014, with Brie Larson publicised as Carol Danvers (aka Captain Marvel) at San Diego's Comic-Con in 2016. The film saw its Worldwide Premier in London on 27th February, its US Premier in Hollywood on 4th March and went on general release in Stateside on 8th March, two days after its Australian release. The film has so far grossed US$525M and has garnered generally favourable Reviews.

Set in 1995 on the Kree Empire (a scientifically and technologically advanced militaristic alien race resembling humans almost exactly) planet of Hala, Starforce (a crack team of super-powered individuals) member Vers (Brie Larson) has recurring visions of an older woman with whom she shares some sort of affinity. Yon-Rogg (Jude Law) is mentor and commander to Vers, and head of Starforce. He trains her to control her fighting abilities, while the Supreme Intelligence (Annette Benning) an artificial intelligence and ruler over the Kree prompts Vers to maintain her emotions in check.

Following a little pep talk with the Supreme Intelligence (whom Vers recognises as the same woman from her visions) she is granted her first mission with Starforce, accompanied by Korath (Djimon Hounsou), Minn-Erva (Gemma Chan), Att-Lass (Algenis Perez Soto), Bron-Char (Rune Temte) and of course Yon-Rogg. Together they venture to the planet Torfa to rescue a Kree scout named Soh-Larr who has infiltrated a group of Skrulls (alien shapeshifters who can transform themselves into exact replicas of other beings at will).

This leads to a Skrull ambush led by Talos (Ben Mendelsohn) which results in Vers being captured, separated from the rest of her group and taken aboard an Earth bound ship and subjected to a probe of her memory. After successfully thwarting her sworn enemy, Vers manages to escape in a pod which crash lands on Earth through the roof of a Blockbuster Video Store late at night.

Early the next morning this overnight activity has attracted the attention of desk jockey S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) and Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg, both of whom were de-aged by 25 years for the purposes of the 1995 setting), whose questioning of Vers is interrupted by an attack by several recently arrived Skrulls on the hunt for their escaped prisoner.

During the chase involving Vers hunting down the shapeshifting Skrulls both of whom are being hunted down by Fury and Coulson, Vers recovers a crystal containing her extracted memories dropped by a Skrull she tussled with aboard the subway train, while Fury kills a Skrull replicating Coulson. Talos meanwhile has assumed the identity of S.H.I.E.L.D. Director Keller, and after performing an autopsy on the dead Skrull, orders Fury to work alone to learn more of this shapeshifting alien race, although of course he has ulterior motives for doing so.

Fury mentions to Keller that he has a lead on Vers and tracks her down to a remote bar, which she had seen before in her visions and which clearly holds some significance. There the pair sit around the table while they both fire questions at each other seeking some clarification of one anothers history, motivations and what next having made their acquaintances. Using his S.H.I.E.L.D. Security clearance he takes Vers to the classified Pegasus US Air Force Base that she has memories of from her visions. Once there, they forcibly break into the archives room and Vers learns from various retrieved files that she was an Air Force pilot presumed dead in 1989 after crashing a plane with an experimental engine designed by a Dr. Wendy Lawson (Annette Benning), whom she recognises as the woman from her visions.

Talos, disguised as Keller, arrives at the Pegasus Air Force Base with a team of S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents who quickly hunt down Fury and Vers, but the pair successfully manage to evade capture and escape in a cargo jet together with Dr. Lawson's stowaway cat, Goose. They fly to Louisiana to meet with Maria Rambeau (Lashana Lynch) a former fellow Air Force Pilot who flew with Vers, and who was the last person to see Vers and Lawson alive. Vers and Fury arrive at the Rambeau homestead to be greeted by Rambeau's eleven year old daughter Monica (Akira Akbar) who refers to her supposedly dead friend as Carol Danvers and sets about recounting her backstory to the long lost friend. Shortly afterwards Talos arrives at the Rambeau family home and reveals that he comes in peace and that the Skrulls are refugees searching for a new home and Lawson was a Kree renegade helping them.

Talos persuades Danvers, Fury and Rambeau to listen to the recovered black box recording from Lawson's plane, prompting Danvers to regain her memories of that fateful day and remember the events leading up to, including and after the experimental plane went down. Lawson tried to destroy the engine's energy-core before being killed by Yon-Rogg for working with the Skrulls. When Danvers destroyed it she absorbed the energy from the explosion and lost all of her memory in the process.

Talos then leads the group, including Goose the cat, to Lawson's cloaked lab ship orbiting Earth, where numerous Skrulls are in hiding and protecting the Tesseract, the source of the energy-core. By now Yon-Rogg and his Starforce team are hot on the heels and infiltrate the lab ship capturing Danvers, where she is connected up remotely to the Supreme Intelligence to await her fate. During their conversation which is very one sided against the mere human Danvers taken in and nurtured by the Kree, Danvers is able to remove a Kree implant that was suppressing her powers giving her full access to her abilities. 

During the ensuing battle, Fury retrieves the Tesseract and Goose, who is revealed to be a Flerken, an alien creature resembling the common house cat, but which have a pocket dimension inside their mouths which can be used to consume and store almost anything. She swallows the Tesseract before scratching Fury's left eye and blinding him. Yon -Rogg orders the support of Kree official Ronan the Accuser (Lee Pace) who fires a series of intergalactic ballistic warheads towards Earth, which forces Danvers in her shiny new red and blue livery to defend against with all her might. This forces Ronan the Accuser to flee to another dimension stating that he will be back to finish the job he started on another day.   

Meanwhile, an escaping Yon-Rogg darts off in an escape pod chased by Danvers who forces her quarry to crash land some where in the desert on Earth. She quickly overpowers him and has him return to Hala against his will, empty handed and with a warning to the Supreme Intelligence not to mess with her or the Skrulls again. Danvers flies off to help the Skrulls find a new homeworld, and gives Fury a modified pager to contact her in the event of any dire emergency. Meanwhile, back at his desk Fury drafts an initiative paper aimed at targeting other heroes like her, because if there's one out there, there's sure to be more. He changes the name after finding a photo of Danvers in her Air Force jet, which bears her call sign 'Avenger'.

Watch out for the Stan Lee cameo appearance, and in whose name this film is dedicated, and the mid-credits and end-credits sequences too, which bring us forward to the present day and take us back to Fury's 1995 empty desk, and that cat!

'Captain Marvel' is a worthy addition to the MCU, and an enjoyable mid-'90's romp aided and abetted by a feel good 'buddy cop' partnering between a younger and still finding his feet Nick Fury and the emerging super powers of Carol Danvers coming to terms with her destiny. In this time of the 'MeToo' movement, this film resonates with female empowerment, overcoming adversity and women finding their place in the world, and for that reason it strikes a chord that couldn't be more relevant. There's also just the right amount of humour between Fury and Danvers to provide a grounded levity before the action set pieces click in. Whilst the story backs and forths to the point of near confusion in the first half, hold tight, because it does all come together in the end and makes sense. What didn't make sense to me however, is unlike all the other Superheroes we have seen on the big screen - both MCU and DCEU, Captain Marvel, aka Carol Danvers aka Vers is indestructible and wields unprecedented power it seems. She can glide effortlessly through great balls of fire, survive unharmed and unscathed by even the biggest explosions (refer intergalactic ballistic warheads), live to tell another day from falling out of an escape pod somewhere above the Earth's atmosphere and hurtle towards the Earth crashing into bed rock and simply dusting herself off, she can thwart photon blasts, being buried under crashing iron and steel infrastructure, kicked, punched, thrown aloft and never, does she have a torn piece of clothing or a hair out of place. She well and truly might just be the saviour of the known universe, and perhaps the only match for Thanos! Watch this space! Certainly worth the price of your ticket, worth seeing on the big screen, and it's great to see Samuel L. Jackson looking so much younger, leaner and fresher, and for the most part with both eyes intact.

'Captain Marvel' merits four claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a possible five.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-