It Ends
A quartet of mid-twenty-somethings, philosophical and buttoned-up James (Phinehas Yoon), the candid Tyler (Mitchell Cole), plucky Fisher (Noah Toth), and the witty Day (Akira Jackson), are on a seemingly normal car ride as It Ends begins. Writer/director Alexander Ullom quickly, though, shows that they've ended up on a road that won't end. No matter how far they drive, they always end up on a road surrounded on both sides by endless trees. All four of these captives never feel hunger or tiredness. The car never runs out of gas. They're all trapped in some sort of limbo, eluding easy explanations.
It Ends joins other 2020s movies like Obsession, Anora, or even the wacky comedy One of Them Days, unflinchingly aware of the dire status quo young people must navigate now as everyday reality. "Is this all there is?" one It Ends character bemoans about their circumstances, a collection of words that could easily apply to anyone under 35 looking around at a world racked by Baby Boomer-instilled problems like no affordable housing, endless inflation, and inescapable climate change woes. The ceaseless It Ends road registered to me as a physical manifestation of enduring late-stage American capitalism. Happily, though, Ullom's confident writing and visual chops keep the proceedings ambiguous enough that viewers can draw their own conclusions on what this all means, if it even represents anything.
In the moment, It Ends works superbly as a claustrophobic thriller where the pervasively sunny exteriors compellingly mock the four despondent leads trapped inside a crusty automobile. Just watching these four idiosyncratic personalities clash in ways big and small is enough to keep one engrossed. James' increasingly committed passion for finding some meaning within this inexplicable phenomenon is especially compellingly realized. Ullom's refusal to either offer easy answers about what's happening or cut away from the four trapped characters is remarkable. Like another standout 2020s directorial debut, Fran Kranz's excellent Mass, It Ends knows the value of keeping your cast and scope limited.
That approach informs several memorable scenes lending vivid insight into the heads of these people. Especially evocative is a sequence where Day and Fisher giggle over stupid memes, scream outside the car, then proceed to alternate between laughing and crying while hugging James. This whirlwind of emotions hauntingly captures the experience of coping with any kind of ongoing trauma. Surface-level "acceptance" one minute can crumble into profoundly raw resurfacing pain the next. Alexander Ullom has a sublime eye for such psychological facets that tremendously benefits It Ends.
Such feats are deftly woven into a well-paced 89-minute runtime that's just long enough to ensure audiences feel the scope of this entrapment without risking the central hook of It Ends wearing out its welcome. Misery for these four poor, crestfallen souls does at least translate into a memorably haunting cinematic experience for viewers.
The Rivals of Azmiah King
There's one plot point late in The Rivals of Azmiah King that...I'm not sure quite works in execution. No spoilers here, but it's a darker narrative beat that, on paper, fits in with the film's larger themes regarding people's moral complexity. It also feels consistent with the "tall tale" vibes that the entire feature evokes. Conceptually, writer/director Andrew Patterson going down this road makes sense. The delivery of that narrative detour, though, needed an extra polish. However, the existence of this element in Azmiah King reflects welcome creative audacity. The Vast of Night helmer Patterson is here to deliver something unique that keeps you guessing rather than a motion picture that's been "focus group"-ed to death.
The film's titular character Azmiah King (Matthew McConaughey) is a relaxed and wise beekeeper. King loves his friends, harvesting honey, appreciating nature, and playing music. He's also delighted to reunite with Kateri (Angelina LookingGlass), a now-grown woman he previously cared for when she was an eight-year-old in foster care. Kateri's often navigated the world alone, but now she's got the gregarious Azmiah King happily introducing her to his world. Her passion for beekeeping is rekindled as this father figure keeps pushing her into new situations that let her grow as a person.
For The Rivals of Azmiah King's first half, Patterson leans on hangout movie vibes (kind of like the aesthetic of McConaughey's breakout feature Dazed & Confused). Save for one set piece involving an inadvertent scalping and some beekeeping equipment, there's no ticking clock or antagonists here. This is just a film about savoring the outdoors and good friends.
Then the second half arrives, and the whole proceedings get turned on their head. If you ever wondered what a Mark Twain heist movie would look like, it'd likely resemble this Rivals of Azmiah King section. In both modes, the feature works quite well. This laid-back storytelling mode especially plays to McConaughey's acting strengths, including giving him lots of explanatory dialogue for his beautiful voice to deliver. The real standout, though, is Angelina LookingGlass. Many viewers will come to this movie for McConaughey, but everyone leaving Azmiah King will be buzzing (no pun intended) about her chops. Her gift for conveying conviction just through a single facial expression or her moving depictions of Kateri coming out of her shell, are just some of the many great traits defining this performance.
It's also great how The Rivals of Azmiah King has visual flourishes I don't normally associate with modern movies set in the American South. A visual motif where the camera briefly speeds up, gets "snapshots" of actions like somebody cooking, and then abruptly cuts to something else, for instance, radiates specificity to this movie. This element reflects editor Patrick J. Smith's terrific precision throughout the movie (including in montage scenes where he's dating around various locations and points in time). Given that Smith only has three prior feature film editing credits to his name, he epitomizes how The Rivals of Azmiah King is a great showcase for up-and-coming artists. Composers Erick Alexander and Jared Bulmer also capture this, ditto Angelina LookingGlass. These fresher faces imbue plenty of craftsmanship into The Rivals of Azmiah King, which crackles and engrosses even despite that one questionable third-act plot point.
Mutiny
In his latest star vehicle, Mutiny, Jason Statham says “6 7” (albeit as part of a larger code of words) At one point, Annabelle Wallis tells Statham, “we can go through the ventilation shaft”, then it cuts to the main deck of a Navy vessel, and I swear to God, I thought one of the people at the sonar screens was gonna go, “sir! They’ve gone up the ventilation shaft!” I also initially just took it as a matter of fact that a photo of a bald guy on an ID Statham was using to get around the cargo ship was a picture of Doug Walker.
These being the default elements on my mind whilst exiting Mutiny speaks to how little impact this production had on me. Here, Statham plays Cole Reed, a former British cop who now works as a bodyguard for a rich guy. Once that wealthy fellow is murdered, Reed sneaks aboard a cargo ship to get some answers and revenge related to the murder. It actually takes a good while before Statham is actually out on the high seas in Mutiny. Having recently watched exquisite genre films like John Woo's The Killer and Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, both of which plunge audiences right away into entertaining spectacle, Mutiny's plodding pacing is a bore. Who needs all this set-up? Just get Statham aboard the ship!
Despite being a Statham action vehicle largely set on just a cargo ship that runs under 95 minutes, director Jean-François Richet and screenwriters Lindsay Michel and J.P. Davis weirdly overcomplicate Mutiny. Once Reed's aboard the vessel, he discovers the baddies are human traffickers, because killing innocent people wasn't enough of a motivation for the hero to pursue the villains. These victims float in and out of the movie, which renders any attempts to wring tension out of their safety inert. There's also a frustrating death of either fun baddies (Roland Møller is phoning it in as the nasty ship captain) or distinctively realized fight sequences.
Any extra opportunities for fun keep getting eschewed. What hand-to-hand skirmishes do materialize are competently realized, but in a summer when The Furious reached the big screen, why settle for "just okay"? There are so many more energetic, specifically realized, and propulsive action films out there. Statham's even headlined loopier, more enjoyable outings like The Beekeeper. Go watch The Furious instead; don't waste your time on something so slow and generic.
Neon Genesis Evangelion: The End of Evangelion
Watching all of Neon Genesis Evangelion in the last month has been a tremendous experience. Even after years of hype, actually witnessing this show's glorious animation and evolving tone (which quickly detours into something so grim and harrowing) has been mighty impactful. Part of what's been exciting about watching this show has been knowing, in the back of my mind, that the movie Neon Genesis Evangelion: The End of Evangelion was waiting for me. This alternate ending to the original show has been universally acclaimed, and I can totally see why now. This is a go-for-broke production leaving absolutely everything on the floor.
Part of that creative ambition means taking the dystopian vibes of Neon Genesis Evangelion to their natural conclusion. Throughout the show, these characters have existed in a world ravaged by The Second Impact or found themselves chilling against decimated cities. Wreckage is just part of the backdrop for Shinji and company. The End of Evangelion takes that core detail, ramps it up to the nth degree, and makes an entire movie about it. This is essentially the world ending as bullets fly, advanced Evas jump-start the Third Impact, and not even Shinji's most skillful robot-fighting skills can stop the impending apocalypse. This is less a film built on the tension of "can the end of the world be stopped?" and more about "what will that end look like?" and "how will this affect the minds of people like Shinji?"
I'd be the first to admit that The End of Evangelion suffers a bit from "too much of a good thing" vibes. Occasionally, the intentionally excessive imagery is exhausting instead of awe-inspiring. However, more often than not, the gusto maximalism dominating the feature is appropriately staggering. The final 30 minutes alone are a towering achievement in nightmarish chaos that goes anywhere and everywhere (including a brief detour into the real world). These heightened images and details like Asuka's vivid facial expressions and physicality when she's fighting evolved EVA's signify the new visual possibilities Neon Genesis Evangelion explores with a feature film budget. An already resplendent show amplifies its best visual instincts to create an effectively overwhelming portrait of the world crumbling.
Happily, amidst all the apocalyptic mayhem, Neon Genesis Evangelion: The End of Evangelion makes room for the best character in the entire saga: Pen-Pen. Like Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me carving out time for a Log Lady cameo, this particular feature film extension of a popular TV series ensures that a fan-favorite supporting player isn't entirely absent from the proceedings. It's the end of the world as we know it, but I feel fine knowing that the iconic penguin Pen-Pen got to be on-screen one last time. Imbuing a perfect Pen-Pen cameo into The End of Evangelion speaks to the attention to detail that really makes this movie soar.
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