The Ward (2010)

Director: John Carpenter

Cast: Amber Heard, Mamie Gummer, Danielle Panabaker, Jared Harris

Have I Seen it Before: No. I acquired it during one of my flea market runs for DVDs. Had it not had the Carpenter moniker on it, it would have never occurred to me to watch the film, much less own it.

Did I Like It: Without going into too much detail about the movie itself, as I finally watched the movie, I knew without any shred of doubt that I would never watch it again, thus it immediately went not on the shelf my standing disc collection, but instead on the pile of DVDs to be sold or donated somewhere.

Want to know more about the movie? The plot is barely non-existant, and the twist ending has the unusual distinction of feeling cliched, tacked on, and not actually mean anything in favor of one more jump scare in the film’s last moment. It’s barely an hour and a half, but feels much longer.

Carpenter hasn’t really made a good film since arguably In the Mouth of Madness (1994) and undeniably since They Live (1988). He had taken a ten-year break before coming back to direct here, He has yet to direct anything since, and I think that’s probably the right decision. He lost interest in making great films a long time ago.

But the elements that would have made this a diverting way to spend just over an hour weren’t even there. The film makes pretty good use of the wide screen format, but long gone are the days of his collaborations with cinematographer Dean Cundey. He didn’t even do the score. A thorough disappointment all around.

Is it sad or sort of okay if a once-great director just runs out of steam one day? I for one think that’s fine. The sentiment surely doesn’t save this film, but no one can take away the fact that John Carpenter made Halloween (1978).

Aquaman (2018)

Director: James Wan

Cast: Jason Momoa, Amber Heard, Patrick Wilson, Nicole Kidman

Have I Seen it Before: It’s hard to see an action movie these days—with their wall-to-wall CGI, bombastic film scores, and framing of shots like their in a gyroscope—and not feel like you’ve been watching the movie many times. Does that begin to answer the question? Probably not. No, I haven’t seen it. At this writing it is a brand new movie. There. Now I’ve answered it.

Did I Like It: I didn’t hate it, which, as it turns out, still manages to bring up the average of post-Nolan DC movies.

I’m not entirely sure why Jason Momoa has spent most of his acting career up until this point being the strong, silent type. I mean, I guess I get the strong part. The man is built like a Joel Schumacher fever dream, but here he gets to let his leading man flag fly, and acquits himself well. He’s often funny, usually charming, and never seems lost in the course of starring in his own movie. That’s not an easy task, especially for someone who has been largely taciturn for much of his acting career.

The movie surrounding him has an odd tone, though. With it’s synthesizer-heavy score, reverse-engineered pseudo-Indiana Jones plot, and the mere presence of Dolph Lundgren* makes this film so thoroughly entrenched in an aesthetic pulled from the 1980s*. With no further context, there’s very little outside of the CGI to indicate that this film was truly made in the second decade fo the 21st century. It’s kind of a refreshing choice, at times. It actually sends my imagination into overdrive about what the film would be like had it been made thirty-plus years earlier. Lundgren would still be in it, although in either the role of Arthur Curry (Momoa) or Orm/Ocean Master (Patrick Wilson, showing up once again to cash some DC money and hopefully not be noticed in the process), while somebody like Sylvester Stallone would be the other role. The imaginary film might have been directed by Stallone as well. The increase in montages for this film would be negligible, if any.

And that might have made it a better movie. The ultimately slapdash fashion in which the film is put together makes me question whether this retro sensibility was either intentional, accidental, or the ongoing trend of studios insisting that all tentpole films be as much like the Guardians of the Galaxy films as possible. Also, the film is an absolute exposition fest. You know it’s going to be a doozy when the film injects a voice over in the first few minutes, but it only gets worse from there. While someone may have decided that this much world building is necessary for a first film set in a world of which audiences likely have little-to-no knowledge, the proceedings are far too weighted down. While this isn’t the annoyingly self-serious Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016) or the muddled Justice League (2017), it doesn’t quite reach the magnificence of Wonder Woman (2017) or any of the largely superior Marvel films. Keep trying DC, you might yet get it down one of these days.

*Who, by the way, between this and Creed II, is having a renaissance the likes of which we haven’t seen since the one two punch of Masters of the Universe (1987) and The Punisher (1989).