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A Quiet Place

Apr21

Movie Review by Joan Ellis –

A Quiet Place

Just to level with you at the outset: I’m no fan of horror movies. When good reports began to sift in about A Quiet Place, it seemed the best choice during this extremely weak movie spring. Just about two minutes passed before the originality and skill up there on the screen scared the audience into stone cold silence. Who is responsible for this wickedly absorbing movie?

Director John Krasinski worked with writers Bryan Woods and Scott Beck to bring this story to life. We are pulled in on the 89th day after a slew of monsters invaded the land around a New York State family. Because the monsters’ eyes can’t guide them successfully to the food they need, they pounce and eat anything that makes a noise. The Abbott family learns quickly to live in absolute silence, to walk barefoot, to sneak through life to avoid becoming food for the invaders. That premise ensures that the story will be delivered in silence while occasional background music reflects different moods. Complete quiet invites us to reexamine the noises of our own world.

Father Lee (John Krasinski) spends his time trying to figure out how to send an SOS to the bigger world. Mother Evelyn (Emily Blunt) tends her children – teenager Regan (Millicent Simmonds) and eight-year-old Marcos (Noah Jupe). Both of these young people understand the disastrous possibilities of noise and both are cooperative and clever. No arguments in this situation, just how are they going to stay alive if these monsters hear even the noise from a dropped bottle cap – or when someone steps on a nail?

As for Mom and Dad, John Krasinski and Emily Blunt, married in real life, do a beautiful job of creating two people who stay calm in the face of catastrophe. Each is believable in this outsize state of horror and both are dedicated to saving their children. Whenever a tiny noise erupts, a monster surges in for food. It is probably best just to say the actors are so good that you will be glued to your seat in fear. Each of them is not just credible, but inventive. The filmmakers were wise to delay the arrival of the monsters until late in the movie. Watching a family cope with living in silence gives us time to appreciate each of them. We don’t want anything bad to happen.

In a dire situation we’ve never imagined, this family wins us completely and then, suddenly a noise followed by the inevitable invasion of the actual monsters explodes. Those of you who love horror may love these final minutes. Those of us who don’t will keep rooting for the people we have come to know. Just hang in and imagine the creativity it took to create a world of absolute silence for an entire family. And when you go home, have fun listening to the sounds in the world around you that you thought was so quiet. Did someone just drop a bottlecap?

Film Critic: JOAN ELLIS
Film Title : A Quiet Place
Word Count: 498
Running Time: 1:30
Rating: PG-13
Date: 22 April 2018

 

Black Panther

Mar2

Movie Review by Joan Ellis –

Black Panther

Black Panther is technically superb. It is also uninterruptedly violent. With apologies to the gifted team that made this movie, I’m troubled by the degree of physical violence that will be seen by millions of people. Here’s to the first person who makes a movie as good as this one where enemies outwit each other with their brains instead of their weapons.

Consider the strengths. Wakanda is a small nation of rock canyons, water, fields, and trees. Beneath that natural cover the small nation conceals a culture unknown to the world. How did this happen? Long ago, a meteorite made of Vibranium crashed into Wakanda and left rich ore that would allow it to develop the extraordinary vehicles and weaponry the citizenry has kept secret from the world.

The movie opens with the notification to T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman) that his father has been killed and he, the son, will become King of Wakanda. This is complicated by the appearance of Erik Killmonger (Michael Jordan), a villain who challenges T’Challa for the throne. Their rivalry becomes the battle line for the violence that follows as the story works its way toward crowning T’Challa.
Killmonger intends to win the throne with the high tech weapons in the hands of his revolutionaries.

That’s the background for a nearly uninterrupted explosion of violence in the air and on the ground by all the weaponry the Wakandans have invented that the world has yet to see. What saves things – at least almost – are the threads of talk that represent honest disagreement and genuine searching for a better world on the part of some of the Wakandans who don’t want to use their wonderful inventions for killing. Imagine a world where new technologies are used for fun instead of war.

Throughout, we hear sparks of the debates of today as they sizzle among the players. They ask, “Do advanced nations have a duty to share their discoveries to build bridges rather than erecting barriers?”

There is a wonderful scene here of the Black Panther riding atop a spiraling vehicle controlled remotely by Shuri (Letitia Wright) in her lab in Wakanda. Nokia (Lupita Nyong’o) wants to help the less fortunate. The narrow misses, the colorful battles – all are delivered in extraordinary technology. The women have the good ideas here and they begin to lead their new king in the right direction.

Murderous violence is born in the minds of men who then manufacture it and use it, but what if the country who had the tools refused to use them for killing? What if brains instead of brutality won the war? That twist could have been set against the glorious costumes, visual joy, and extreme action delivered in five languages by the genuinely fine actors in this movie. Imagine using these superb special effects to celebrate a country built on that kind of leadership at a time when the world is threatened – as it is now – by men like Killmonger.

Film Critic: JOAN ELLIS
Film Title : Black Panther
Word Count: 496
Running Time: 2:14
Rating: PG-13
Date: 2 March 2018