Weapons is a contender for one of my favourite films of the year so far, earning a solid 5 out of 5.
Writer/director Zach Cregger brings a tense, chilling, twisty tale that’s best enjoyed on the big screen. On a random weekday at 2:17am, seventeen boys and girls go missing from their homes, captured in some cases on doorbell cameras, spookily running with their arms outstretched in a straight line, disappearing into the dark of the night.
The story starts around a month after their disappearance, and each chapter is told from a different character’s perspective. Anger ripples in the small town of Maybrook, as the missing kids’ teacher Justine Gandy (an excellent turn from Julia Garner) becomes the subject of local finger-pointing and resentment. She begins looking into the life of Alex, the only pupil in the class who has not vanished (Cary Christopher), and starts to make some chilling discoveries.
There are flashes of humour, a few excellent jump scares, but unlike some horrors these days, there’s not a reliance on them to provide the chills.
The story is woven together really nicely, and you might watch a scene involving cutlery through your fingers (I did, anyway). A contender for my favourite horror of the year. Lots of characters you care about, decent twists and turns in the story, and a satisfying conclusion that ties everything together in a neat bow.
Nobody 2 won’t change the world, but I enjoyed the sight of Christopher Lloyd arming a dilapidated waterpark with explosives, ready to blow the place sky high, whilst chomping his way through a cigar in the style of Hannibal from the ‘A’ Team. I’ve worked out I’m now older than Lloyd was when he played the Doc in Back To The Future, which is alarming (he’s 86!).
If you missed the first Nobody, it was recently on Film4. The second takes the violence to new levels, perhaps at the expense of the humour, but I really enjoyed seeing Bob Odenkirk employing whack-a-mole tactics against some wrong ‘uns in the amusement arcade, taking on a lift full of bad guys, and generally doing a terrible job of taking a holiday from his job as an assassin for hire. He just wants a break, but is never far from a mass brawl.
As for Materialists, one review on Twitter describes it as “a cynical romcom with very little comedy”. That’s a good summary, to be honest. Some critics seem to be swooning over it, but I found it dragged big time, especially as I loved director Celine Song’s first film Past Lives so much. It certainly has something to say about the transactional nature of dating and marriage, but it makes its points with the subtlety of a sledgehammer. I liked the scene at the gatecrashed wedding, where Dakota Johnson and Chris Evans’ characters have an honest heart-to-heart, but the endless talk about salaries, wealth & ‘doing the math’ were like watching paint dry. I’ve had more exciting showers.
Alex Cann's weekly film blog - 9th January
