After the dramatised kinda-sorta autobiography of Lady Bird, and the classic literary adaptation of Little Women, writer/director Greta Gerwig’s latest feature is… a curveball. A curveball I have had several months to adjust to (and we’re talking before all the actual marketing material and ‘Barbenheimer’ was a thing) but a curveball nonetheless. But that’s just in terms of this film existing in the first place; the actual film itself is something else entirely.
What is the worst thing you can say to a raging narcissist with a saviour complex? And I don’t mean “worst” as in “what will hurt their feefees the most?”; I mean what would make this already-precarious situation even worse?
You tell him that he might actually be onto something.
After spending the last few years focusing more on streaming with The Boys, Invincible, and the Pam & Tommy miniseries, my favourite modern film studio is back on the big screen. Yes, Point Grey Pictures, Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg’s production company, who I have come to adore for their consistently fun releases and unrivalled knack for matching licensed music to film. On top of their long-awaited return (by me, at least), it also comes in the form of something else I haven’t seen much of over the last few years: A proper American-R-rated raunchy comedy. Y’know, the kind I used to bitch about fairly often because they kept stopping the film dead just so the actors could riff off of each other without actually furthering the plot? Good times.
I reckon we’re in somewhat safe hands here because, no matter how this turns out, there’s little chance of this being the worst Dracula fanfic I’ve reviewed on here. We also have director Chris McKay, who has a healthy pedigree for legitimising the fanfic mentality in mainstream storytelling, from his ambitious work on Robot Chicken to the IP free-for-all of The LEGO Batman Movie (before Warner Bros. went way the hell too far with that idea for films like Space Jam: A New Legacy), and of course, Nic Cage as Dracula. Honestly, I could have just left it at “Nic Cage as Dracula” and that would’ve been enough to sell why this deserves to be watched… but that would still be leaving out a lot of the surprising delights of this feature.
Patrick Wilson is one of my favourite actors working today. Whether he’s fighting underwater King Arthur, stuck with late-career Katherine Heigl, or being the face of James Wan’s post-Saw horror catalogue, the man just seems to shine no matter where he goes. As such, the prospect of him making the transition to director has certainly got me intrigued, especially within a franchise that had already launched a major directing talent in Leigh Whannell. But as I look at his debut here, I can’t help but think he would benefit from having a completely different starting point, because this doesn’t really do him any favours.
After scoring two respectable hits (well, one hit and one highly divisive feature, but this is me talking, and I think they were both very good) while the industry around him was busy scrambling to deal with a once-in-a-lifetime epidemic, director Rob Savage has now stepped right into the mainstream with a Stephen King adaptation. Knowing what happened last time a promising new talent made their kick-in-the-door announcement with a King feature, I’d like to say that I’m keeping my expectations in check… but honestly, I really wanted to like this. And yeah, I do, but only like it.
Even with how much I go to bat for the superhero genre around here, I was… kind of dreading going to see this one?
Part of that is because of Ezra Miller and what can loosely be described as their touring psycho circus over the past year and a bit (it’s been going on for much longer, but I mean in terms of mainstream coverage of it), of which I will not be getting into as it could take up this entire post all on its own… and quite frankly, I don’t feel all that comfortable commenting on it at length to begin with.
Part of it is because the entire conversation concerning the DCEU, the beginnings of its transition into the James Gunn-led DC Studios, and people still clamouring for Snyder to come back, has grown extremely tiresome, with this film being the cornerstone for that major transition.
And part of it is because I didn’t exercise due caution when it comes to new blockbusters and wound up having quite a bit of the film spoiled for me beforehand (specifically the… let’s call them ‘necromantic cameos’), and what I saw didn’t exactly raise hopes of this working out in the midst of everything else.
As I’ve gotten into in past reviews, the main reason why I do these reviews in the first place is because… well, I have fun doing this. It isn’t to present myself as some high arbiter of taste or to get involved in fandom politics; I enjoy watching and writing about films. Simple as. And watching films with this much baggage behind them, both as art and as studio product, tends to kill the mood for me. But at the very least, having now watched the film in question, I can say that I had more fun with the film than I was expecting.
